Thread: Quines

  1. #1
    Un Artiste Extraordinaire volk's Avatar
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    Quines

    How exactly do programs that display there own source code work?

  2. #2
    Code Goddess Prelude's Avatar
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    They can work any number of ways, I've seen some that use character values to help print themselves, others that heavily use the preprocessor, and creative use of language features. This is my personal favorite because it's just so sneaky.
    Code:
    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <stdlib.h>
    
    int main(void)
    { 
        int c;
        FILE *f = fopen(__FILE__, "r"); 
    
        if (f == 0)
            return EXIT_FAILURE;
    
        while ((c = getc(f)) != EOF)
            putchar(c);
    
        fclose(f);
    
        return EXIT_SUCCESS;
    }
    My best code is written with the delete key.

  3. #3
    Un Artiste Extraordinaire volk's Avatar
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    Does sneaky translate to easiest?

  4. #4
    Code Goddess Prelude's Avatar
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    >Does sneaky translate to easiest?
    Yes, sneaky, isn't it?
    My best code is written with the delete key.

  5. #5
    Un Artiste Extraordinaire volk's Avatar
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    Is it possible to display the source code of any program like a hello world program?

    That program simply displays the source code of the source code that displays the source code. What if I don't want to see the source code that displays the source code?

    Um...yeah.

  6. #6
    Code Goddess Prelude's Avatar
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    >Is it possible to display the source code of any program like a hello world program?
    Not just the hello world program, it takes a lot of work to write a program that prints itself exactly. Often the result is far from portable.

    >What if I don't want to see the source code that displays the source code?
    The output of the program that displays the source code is the source code, so if you don't want to see the source code of the program that displays the source code, you shouldn't write the source code of the program that displays the source code. Do something more productive than write programs that print themselves.
    My best code is written with the delete key.

  7. #7
    Un Artiste Extraordinaire volk's Avatar
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    Originally posted by Prelude
    Do something more productive than write programs that print themselves.
    I'll go read the newspaper now.

  8. #8
    Registered User major_small's Avatar
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    the way i would do it:
    1)include the program and .cpp file
    2)have the program infile the .cpp file
    3)have a comment in the .cpp file like this:
    Code:
    ...
    //ignore
    ... // <=searching algorithm goes here
    //endignore
    ...
    4)write the printing algorithm to ignore these comments and everything in between them...
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  9. #9
    Registered User Xei's Avatar
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    You could add your own source code as a resource right? Anyways, I wouldn't want to do that. In fact, I think displaying your own code is kinda useless. I'm guessing that you would use it as a way of Error Checking, right? In that case I would use Structured Exception Handling, and cause each function do pass some sort of identifier whenever an exception occured, that way you would be able to check out the error type, and what function it happened in... if, ofcourse, that was the reason for wanting to know how to display your own code.
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  10. #10
    Un Artiste Extraordinaire volk's Avatar
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    I just wanted to know how it's done. I didn't actually want to use it for anything. You know, like remembering a birthday. <--- That was a joke.

    Though, I don't think anyone uses it for anything serious. Doing things like that is just a fun way of excercising your programming knowledge.

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