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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!princeton!allegra!alice!ark
From: ark@alice.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Self reproducing programs (was Re: Problems needed!)
Message-ID: <7036@alice.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 30-Jun-87 10:09:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: alice.7036
Posted: Tue Jun 30 10:09:47 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 1-Jul-87 06:17:41 EDT
References: <9819@duke.cs.duke.edu> <6835@beta.UUCP> <754@percival.UUCP> <1790@megaron.arizona.edu>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Liberty Corner NJ
Lines: 13

In article <1790@megaron.arizona.edu>, debray@arizona.UUCP writes:
> The *really* trivial solution is the program consisting of the empty
> string.  A "correct" compiler should compile this to produce the empty
> object program, which when executed will generate the empty string as
> output.

This only works in some languages.  For example, the shortest
Algol 60 program is

	begin end

Fortran also prohibits empty programs, as does Cobol and many
versions of Basic.