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From: oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (David Phillip Oster)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Programs which print themselves out
Message-ID: <21639@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Fri, 6-Nov-87 15:24:05 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.21639
Posted: Fri Nov  6 15:24:05 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Nov-87 20:33:09 EST
References: <9015@shemp.UCLA.EDU>
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Reply-To: oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (David Phillip Oster)
Organization: School of Education, UC-Berkeley
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In article <9015@shemp.UCLA.EDU> lui@CS.UCLA.EDU (Stephen Lui) writes:
>What is the shortest program, in some popular language like C or Pascal, which
>prints itself out when executed?

Starting with an arbitrary text file (such as this article), named "junk"
the sequence:

% mv junk junk.c
% cc junk.c >& junk

repeated 5 or 6 times quickly converges to a file which, when compiled
generates itself as an error message.

For any language, the null program, when run, generates itself as output.

In Apl, or Lisp, the next largest answer is of course the program:

1

this program, when run, produces itself as a value.

--- David Phillip Oster            --A Sun 3/60 makes a poor Macintosh II.
Arpa: oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu --A Macintosh II makes a poor Sun 3/60.
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