Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!claris!hearn
From: hearn@claris.com (Bob Hearn)
Newsgroups: comp.std.c
Subject: Re: Portable Self-Replicating C Contest
Message-ID: <9201@claris.com>
Date: 27 Mar 89 21:45:38 GMT
References: <2179@fireball.cs.vu.nl> <2976@goofy.megatest.UUCP> <12144@haddock.ima.isc.com> <1417@sw1e.UUCP>
Reply-To: hearn@claris.com (Bob Hearn)
Organization: Claris Corporation, Mountain View CA
Lines: 18

Oops... sorry.  Stupid mailer sent the wrong file.  One more time...

> Isn't it impossible for a C program to replicate itself if it doesn't access
> the operating system (other than printing to stdout)?  The question of whether
> it can be done while *using* the OS should come out of this contest so I'll
> wait patiently...
> 
> By the way, please forgive me if this all seems trivially true/false...but
> please enlighten me.

No, it's not impossible... the basic idea is to write a program that means
the equivalent of:

Write the following quotation, then write it again, quoted: "Write the 
following quotation, then write it again, quoted:"

Bob Hearn
hearn@claris.com