Making a program copy itself

Is it possible to make a program copy itself somewhere in c? What I meen is say if I compile my program to example.exe, when it runs I want it to copy itself somewhere else say like c:\bob.exe or somthing. Don't know if my question made sence but thanks.

and why would you want to do that exactly?

Why not? Its just a (binary) file. Some Operating Systems might not allow it under certain conditions though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fischerandom

Why not? Its just a (binary) file. Some Operating Systems might not allow it under certain conditions though.

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When someone starts asking questions about code which sounds suspicious (i.e, self replicating executables, etc) he is not likely to get much help. Further, it is against the board rules to post on 'illegal actvities,' and, therefore, a question or two regarding the nature of his business with self replicating code is definitely not out of line.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fischerandom

Why not? Its just a (binary) file. Some Operating Systems might not allow it under certain conditions though.

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Go Away.

You'll need to learn binary code for your platform type (eg Win32 + x86) and write a quine in it. That's all really :rolleyes: ;)

Um...yeah that's simple. I have no idea why you would want to do this, but hey go for it.

A couple of simple C block (array-based) I/O functions will do the trick.

Since I do not see the harm there is in creating a copy of an exe I do not deem this code to be unsafe.

And since you obviously cannot perform this simple task I do not see you as a threat or as someone who could inject assembly opcodes into the correct places in the final exe in a way as to do any damage at all.

Code:

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...
int source_handle=_open(source_filename,_O_BINARY | _O_RDONLY,_S_IREAD);
if (source_handle==-1) return;

int target_handle=_open(target_filename,_O_BINARY | _O_WRONLY,_S_IWRITE);
if (target_handle==-1) return;

DWORD dwLength=filelength(source_handle);

BYTE *pBuffer=new BYTE[dwLength];
if (!pBuffer) return;
memset(pBuffer,dwLength,0);

_read(source_handle,(BYTE *)pBuffer,dwLength);
_write(target_handle,(BYTE *)pBuffer,dwLength);

_close(source_handle);
_close(target_handle);

delete [] pBuffer;

...

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Oh and if you don't like the use of new on the C board then replace it with malloc. I could care less really.

This is a far cry (no pun intended) from self-modifying code as is. Should you want to do that then I won't help you blow up your system anymore.