On Mon, 17 Mar 2003, drieux wrote:
> p0: thank for the URL's - forgive my lack of awareness
> that this had been 'named'.
Oh yeah, and written about at great length :)
This URL gives a pretty good overview of the mechanics of quines:
http://www.eleves.ens.fr:8080/home/madore/computers/quine.html
The core of it is this section:
http://www.eleves.ens.fr:8080/home/madore/computers/quine.html#sec_princ
Especially fun are mutilingual quines, called "polyglots":
http://www.nyx.net/~gthompso/self_mult.htm
> p1: So the problem then is getting a quine that would work with 'use
> strict' - which I seem to be having the problem with - as I can get the
> quine to work as 'written' but not when I try to load in a 'use strict'
> - the eval baulks at the process...
Maybe this'll help:
% sudo perl -MCPAN -e "install Quine"
As described here:
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/CodeDoc/Quine/Quine.html
And demonstrated here:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use Quine;
# rest of code here
heh.
More Perl examples, running under use strict, here:
http://perlmonks.thepen.com/Obfuscated%20Code.html
But really, the best I've seen was Damian Conway's SelfGOL:
The Horror That is SelfGOL
SelfGOL was Damian Conway's intended entry to the Obfuscated Perl
Contest. It can print its own source code (self-replicate), rewrite
other Perl programs so they can print their own source code (and
still perform their original functions), detect un-rewritable Perl
programs, play John Conway's Game of Life using its own source code
or a specified file as a pattern for the board with a board of
arbitrary size, or animate a rotating banner of an arbitrary short
amount of text. SelfGOL's source is under 1000 bytes of standard
Perl, does not import any modules, and doesn't use a single if,
unless, while, until, for, foreach, goto, next, last, redo, map, or
grep.
Usage:
selfgol -s outputs its own source code.
selfgol < perlprog.pl makes perlprog.pl self-replicating (with a
command line switch of -s), outputs new source to STDOUT.
selfgol -g [-y=## -x=##] [< gamefile] plays the Game of Life with
its own source code or an arbitrary file, with optional height
and width restrictions.
selfgol -d[=bannertext] displays a rotating banner with the
provided text. If no text is provided, it uses the program name
as the text.
SelfGOL was written to win all four categories in the Obfuscated
Perl contest (3rd year, I believe, whose web pages are no longer
available) and still comply with other restrictions of not using
modules and being under 1000 bytes. Alas, the rules were
drastically changed for the following year's contest, and so it was
never entered.
http://libarynth.f0.am/cgi-bin/view/Libarynth/SelfGOL
http://yetanother.org/damian/seminars/Extreme.html
But to really grok SelfGOL -- well no, that's impossible, but to get as
close as you're ever likely to get -- you really have to attend Conway's
"Extreme Programming with Perl" talk. It's truly diabolical :)
--
Chris Devers [EMAIL PROTECTED]
price/performance, n.
Marketing: A ratio usually non-computable since the numerator is
subject to random discounts and the denominator vanishingly small. See
also $CALL. Compare LEARNING CURVE.
-- from _The Computer Contradictionary_, Stan Kelly-Bootle, 1995
