Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cme!libes
From: libes@cme.nist.gov (Don Libes)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: C obfuscator
Message-ID: <4342@muffin.cme.nist.gov>
Date: 28 May 90 03:03:26 GMT
References: <12546@netcom.UUCP> <220@taumet.COM> <12573@netcom.UUCP>
Reply-To: libes@cme.nist.gov (Don Libes)
Distribution: comp
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology
Lines: 25

In article <12573@netcom.UUCP> ergo@netcom.UUCP (Isaac Rabinovitch) writes:
>steve@taumet.COM (Stephen Clamage) writes:
>>Well, "honi soit qui mal y pense", to you.  There are plenty of
>>legitimate reasons for obfuscating code.  Why do you assume Mr Loewenstern
>>has only evil intentions?  Surely you don't have to jump all over him
>>until you find out.
>
>Such as?

... a useful way to distribute commercial products for multiple
platforms.  Instead of dozens of binaries, just distribute one source
and let the buyer compile.

For example, page 18 of this month's C Users Journal has an
advertisement for a lint that comes in "shrouded source form" that is
K&R and ANSI compatible, and which compiles on UNIX, DOS, VMS, VM/MVS,
and several other operating systems.  The vendor has covered 99% of
the market with a single distribution.

Not only is this clever, but certain #defines can be left unshrouded
so that you have a little more control than if you just had binaries.

Incidentally, this practice has been around for years.

Don Libes          libes@cme.nist.gov      ...!uunet!cme-durer!libes