R – Code Golf: Lights out

Perl, 134 characters

All linebreaks may be removed.

@s=unpack"C*",~"P\xdbLI\xc3a`[\@AB\xe0t\xc8df";
$_=<>;for$s(6,3,0){print map$s[hex$&]&1<<$_+$s?$_%2?"_":"|":" ",
0..2while/./g;print$/}

Explanation

@s stores the bits for each segment. The entries are in order from 0 to F (thanks to hex()) and the bits map to segments in this order:

6 7 x
3 4 5
0 1 2

with 0 being the LSB. (Bit 6 is unused). The values are stored packed in the string bit-inverted so there are a lot more printable characters; the ~ operator flips the bits and unpack gives me numbers (perl's bitwise operators are much clumsier when it comes to strings).

With the data in hand I read the input and proceed to loop over it three times; the only difference between the three loops is the bitmask required. For each character of input three characters of output are printed. The character to be printed is

$s[ hex $& ] & (1 << ($_ + $s) )
? ($_ % 2 ? "_" : "|" )
: " "

where @s is the lookup table, $s is the shift in effect depending on the row, and $_ is whether we're printing the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd character in the row. If the right bit in the lookup table entry is false it prints a space; otherwise it prints a "|" on the sides or a "_" in the middle.

Perl, 166 160 characters

Perl, 251 248 246 222 214 208 203 201 193 190 180 176 173 170 166 --> 160 chars.

Solution had 166 strokes when this contest ended, but A. Rex has found a couple ways to shave off 6 more characters:

s!.!$t{$s++}=$&!ge,$s=$r+=99for<>;%d='>.^1<2v3'=~/./g;($r)=grep$d|=$d{$t{$_}},%t;
{$_=$t{$r+=(1,-99,-1,99)[$d^=3*/\\/+m</>]};/[\/\\ ]/&&redo}die/x/?true:false,$/

The first line loads the input into %t, a table of the board where $t{99*i+j} holds the character at row i,column j. Then,

%d=split//,'>.^1<2v3' ; ($r)=grep{$d|=$d{$t{$_}}}%t

it searches the elements of %t for a character that matches > ^ < or v, and simultaneously sets $d to a value between 0 and 3 that indicates the initial direction of the laser beam.

At the beginning of each iteration in the main loop, we update $d if the beam is currently on a mirror. XOR'ing by 3 gives the correct behavior for a \ mirror and XOR'ing by 1 gives the correct behavior for a / mirror.

$d^=3*/\\/+m</>

Next, the current position $r is updated accoring to the current direction.

$r+=(1,-99,-1,99)[$d] ; $_ = $t{$r}

We assign the character at the current position to $_ to make convenient use of the match operators.

/[\/\\ ]/ && redo

Continue if we are on a blank space or a mirror character. Otherwise we terminate true if we are on the target ($_ =~ /x/) and false otherwise.

Limitation: may not work on problems with more than 99 columns. This limitation could be removed at the expense of 3 more characters,