Merkle Madness

Index

1. Visual_Project_Description
2. Project Overview
3. Project Summary
4. Project Details
5. Key Methods and Responsibilities

Visual Project Descritipon:

Project Overview

This collaborative project provides hands-on coding experience with multithreading and Merkle roots. It serves as an opportunity to reinforce essential skills related to SHA256 Hashing, Merkle trees, and Multithreading.

Project Summary

The project introduces a console application that combines multithreading and Merkle roots in a simple game. Here's an overview of how the game works:

1. User Input: The user starts by entering the Merkle root of four words they intend to provide to the Merkle thread. The Merkle root can be manually calculated using a provided method or an online tool.

2. Multithreading: The application employs multithreading, allowing the user to submit strings on the main thread. Each submitted string is grabbed by either a Merkle or Rogue background thread, depending on the timing of the user.

3. Merkle Thread: If the Merkle thread successfully gathers four words, it creates a Merkle tree and generates a Merkle root string. If this root matches the initially entered Merkle root, the user wins the game. Otherwise, they lose.

4. Rogue Thread: The Rogue thread is responsible for accumulating "strikes" every time it grabs a word. If the user accumulates three strikes, they lose the game.

5. Random Delays: Both background threads introduce an element of randomness by sleeping for a random number of seconds. This challenge requires the user to time their submissions correctly to ensure the Merkle thread grabs the words.

6. Monitor Thread: A third Monitor thread in the background constantly checks the progress and terminates the application once the user either wins or loses.

Project Details

• Console Application: This project is designed as a console application.
• User Input: To facilitate user input, it's recommended to use JOptionPane rather than System.in, as the latter can be problematic due to interactions with the threads.
• Classes: The project consists of several classes, including MerkleManager_Test, MerkleManager, MerkleThread, RogueThread, MonitorThread, MerkleNode, and Util.

Key Methods and Responsibilities

• MerkleManager_Test: Contains the main method, instantiates an instance of MerkleManager, and calls the manage function.

• MerkleManager: Manages the game and contains instance variables for user input and game state. It starts three separate threads: MerkleThread, RogueThread, and MonitorThread. It also handles user input for words.

• MerkleThread: Implements Runnable, collects words, and calculates the Merkle root when enough words are collected.

• RogueThread: Implements Runnable, simulates a rogue thread that accumulates strikes when grabbing words.

• MonitorThread: Implements Runnable, constantly monitors game progress and terminates the app when the user either wins or loses.

• MerkleNode: Represents nodes in the Merkle tree, with instance variables for hash, left, and right nodes.

• Util: Contains utility methods shared among classes, such as calculating the Merkle root, generating hashes, prompting the user, and introducing random delays in threads.