Re: A short program

Roger challenged us with this:
>Geeze, you guys. Cycle this.
>
>Since my direct plea to not go on endlessly and redundantly about the
cycle
>didn't work, maybe I can distract you!
>
>Here is a contest for you all.
>
>Write the shortest program possible that can list its own source. You can
>use any language.
>
>This was originally a contest at a NEWS/400 tech editor meeting. It may
>actually be a long-standing programmer riddle, but I had never heard of
it.
>At the time, Paul Contest refereed the contest and AS/400 rockest
scientist
>extraordinare Bruce Lesnick won first place. Bruce's answer was
exceedingly
>clever.
>
>First prize: six cold ones on me.
>
>Anyone here smarter than, or as smart as, Bruce?

Others have submitted entries that actually directly list the source code,
but I consider that cheating and not within the spirit of the challenge.
Here's a REXX program that fits the bill and doesn't read source from any
outside files (or take advantage of the REXX SOURCELINE cheat):

/**/q='7f'x;b=';say a��q��a��q��b';a="/**/q='7f'x;b=';say
a��q��a��q��b';a=";say a��q��a��q��b

(Make sure the above fits in one source record.)

It is a long-standing programming challenge that can be used to compare
the expressive power of various programming languages.  As far as I can
tell, the shortest RPG program that does this without reading any input
files is 29 records long.

Cheers!  Hans

Hans Boldt, ILE RPG Development, IBM Toronto Lab, boldt@ca.ibm.com


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