Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!rutgers!ames!amdcad!sun!plx!dlb!megatest!djones
From: djones@megatest.UUCP (Dave Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Self-replicating programs
Message-ID: <188@goofy.megatest.UUCP>
Date: 26 Dec 87 01:00:51 GMT
References: <52@qucis.UUCP>
Organization: Megatest Corporation, San Jose, Ca
Lines: 40

in article <52@qucis.UUCP>, levison@qucis.UUCP (Mike Levison) says:
> 
> 
> 
> This is probably more than you ever wanted to know on self-
> replicating programs:
> 
>          Self-Reproducing Program (Pascal version)
> 
> The  basic idea is  to create within the program an array of
> characters  which consists  of the whole  program EXCEPT for
> the  assignments which  initialize  the array. The  array is
> then used once  for printing the basic program, and a second
> for printing the assignments.
> 
> Ignore for  a moment  two minor annoyances: line layout, and
> the fact  that one cannot  assign or output quotemarks using
> c[i]:= ''' or write(''').  Both can be overcome trivially at
> the  expense of clarity. Then the program is as follows (the
> comments are not part of it):

[...]



The "quotemark" problem is the only hard problem. How do you make
this program character-set independant?  (The one I posted will
work just as well on an EBCDIC machine as on an ASCII machine.
This posting does not contain everything I want ot know on
self-replicating programs.

		Dave Jones
		Megatest Corp.
		880 Fox Lane
		San Jose, CA.
		95131

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