chongo@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Landon Curt Noll) (07/26/88)
We are sorry that the contest results have been posted so late. We kept thinking that the contest results would be posted on a moderated source group, but it seems that they have not been as of the time of this posting. A number of editorial changes have been made to the comments in the old entries. The contest shar archives are setup in a two level tree. At the top are a README, master Makefile and a directory per contest year. See README for more details. You should replace old copies of the contest results with this set. Share and Enjoy! chongo <Send related Email to: judges@uts.amdahl.com> /\oo/\ -*- # This is a shell archive. Remove anything before this line, then # unpack it by saving it in a file and typing "sh file". (Files # unpacked will be owned by you and have default permissions.) # # This archive contains: # # ./README ./Makefile echo x - ./README sed -e 's/^X//' > "./README" << '//E*O*F ./README//' X The International Obfuscated C Code Contest X X XObfuscate: tr.v. -cated, -cating, -cates. 1. a. To render obscure. X b. To darken. 2. To confuse: His emotions obfuscated his X judgement. [LLat. obfuscare, to darken : ob(intensive) + X Lat. fuscare, to darken < fuscus, dark.] -obfuscation n. X obfuscatory adj. X X X XHow it was started: X XThe original inspiration of the International Obfuscated C Code XContest came from the Bourne Shell source and the finger command as Xdistributed in 4.2BSD. If this is what could result from what some Xpeople claim is reasonable programming practice, then to what depths Xmight quality sink if people really tried to write poor code? X XI put that question to the USENET news groups net.lang.c and Xnet.unix-wizards in the form of a contest. I selected a form similar Xto the contest (Bulwer-Lytton) that asks people to create the worst Xopening line to a novel. (that contest in turn was inspired by disgust Xover a novel that opened with the line "It was a dark and stormy Xnight.") The rules were simple: write, in 512 bytes or less, the worst Xcomplete C program. X XThru the contest I have tried to instill two things in people. First Xis a disgust for poor coding style. Second was the notion of just how Xmuch utility is lost when a program is written in an unstructured Xfashion. Contest winners help do this by what I call satirical Xprogramming. To see why, observe one of the definitions of satire: X X Keen or energetic activity of the mind used for the purpose X of exposing and discrediting vice or folly. X XThe authors of the winning entries placed a great deal of thought into Xtheir programs. These programs in turn exposed and discredited what I Xconsidered to be the programmer's equivalent of "vice or folly". X XThere were two unexpected benefits that came from the contest winners. XFirst was an educational value to the programs. To understand these C Xprograms is to understand subtle points of the C programming language. XThe second benefit is the entertainment value, which should become Xevident as you read further! X X X XSuggestions on how to understand the winning entries: X XYou are strongly urged to try to determine what each program will Xproduce by visual inspection. Often this is an impossible task, but Xthe difficulty that you encounter should give you more appreciation Xfor the entry. X XIf you have the energy to type in the text, or if you have access to Xa machine readable version of these programs, you should next consider Xsome preprocessing such as: X X sed -e '/^#.*include/d' program.c | cc -E X XThis strips away comments and expands the program's macros without Xhaving things such as <stdio.h> macros clutter up the output. If the Xentry requires or suggests the use of compile line options (such as X-Dindex=strchr) they should be added after the '-E' flag. X XThe next stage towards understanding is to use a C beautifier or C Xindenting program on the source. Be warned that a number of these Xentries are so twisted that such tools may abort or become very Xconfused. You may need to help out by doing some initial formatting Xwith an editor. You might also try renaming variables and labels to Xgive more meaningful names. X XNow try linting the program. You may be surprised at how little lint Xcomplains about these programs. Pay careful attention to messages Xabout unused variables, wrong types, pointer conversions, etc. But be Xcareful, some lints produce incorrect error messages or even abort! XYour lint may detect syntax errors in the source. See the next Xparagraph for suggestions on how to deal with this. X XWhen you get to the stage where you are ready to compile the program Xexamine the compilation comments above each entry. A simple define or Xedit may be required due to differing semantics between operating Xsystems. If you are able to successfully compile the program, Xexperiment with it by giving it different arguments or input. XYou may also use the makefile provided to compile the program. XKeep in mind that C compilers often have bugs, or features which Xresult the program failing to compile. You may have to do some Xsyntax changing as we did to get old programs to compile on strict XANSI C compilers. X XLast, read the judges' comments/spoilers on the program. Hints Xfor `foo.c' are given in `foo.hint'. Often they will contain suggested Xarguments or recommended data to use. X XIf you do gain some understanding of how a program works, go back to Xthe source and reexamine it using some of the techniques outlined above. XSee if you can convince yourself of why the program does what it does. X X X XAbout the judges: X XAs of 1988 the contest had two judges: Landon Curt Noll (contest Xfounder) and Larry Bassel (judge since 1985). Landon works as a Xsystems programmer for Amdahl Corporation and Larry works as an systems Xprogrammer for Sun Microsystems. In real life, both judges strongly Xdislike obfuscated code. X X X XRegarding the source archive: X XEach sub-directory contains all the entries for a single year. Often Xthe file names match one of the last names of the author. Judges' Xhints are given in files of the form ``*.hint''. The makefiles Xgiven are set up for a System V based machine. You may need to Xtweak this makefile to get everything to compile correctly. XRead the hint files for suggestions. The rules for a given Xyear are given in the file named ``rules''. The last year Xin an archive contains a copy of the rules for the upcoming Xcontest. X X X XRegarding the distribution of sources: X XAll contest results are in the public domain. We do ask that you observe Xthe following request: X XYou may shar these files with others, but please do not prevent them of Xdoing the same. If some of these files and/or contest entries are Xpublished in printed form, or if you use them in a business or classroom Xsetting, please let us know. We ask that you drop a line to the X'judges' Email box. As of 1988, it is: X X judges@uts.amdahl.com -or- amdahl!judges X X [this could change from year to year, so consult the current rules] X X X XSome final things to remember: X XWhile the idea for the contests has remained the same through the Xyears, the contest rules and guidelines vary. What was novel one year Xmay be considered common the next. The categories for awards differ Xbecause they are determined after the judges examine all of the Xentries. X XThe judges' hints assume that the program resides in a file with the Xsame username as the author. Where there is more than one author, the Xfirst named author is used. X XSome C compilers are unable to compile some of these programs. The Xjudges tried to select programs that were widely portable and Xcompilable, but did not always succeed. As of 1988, only ``K&R'' Xcompilers were used. Due to the timing of the ANSI C standard, ANSI C Xissues were not addressed until 1988 at all (and in 1988 there were Xjust a few comments in the hint files). Often only a simple edit is Xneeded to get a new C compiler to accept the source file. X XThe contest rules are posted in early March. The winners are announced Xat the Usenet BOF of the Summer Usenix conference. Later they Xare posted to the net. X XThe rules are posted to the following Usenet news groups: X X comp.unix.wizards X comp.lang.c X XAs of 1988, the winners were posted to the following Usenet news groups: X X comp.sources.unix X comp.lang.c X alt.sources X XPeople are strongly encouraged to wait until the new contest rules Xhave been posted before sending entries. The rules, and sometimes Xthe contest Email address itself, change from time to time. XThe typical start date for a contest is March 15. The typical Xend date for a contest is May 20. X XLast, PLEASE don't code in the style of these programs (unless you Xare submitting a contest entry of course!) It is hoped that you will Xgain an understanding that bad style destroys an otherwise correct Xprogram. Real programmers don't write obfuscated programs that other Xpeople have to use! X XHappy pondering, X X Landon Curt Noll (chongo@uts.amdahl.com) X Larry Bassel (lab@sun.com) //E*O*F ./README// echo x - ./Makefile sed -e 's/^X//' > "./Makefile" << '//E*O*F ./Makefile//' X# %W% %G% %U% X# X XSHELL=/bin/sh X Xall: X @-for i in [12][0-9][0-9]?; do \ X if [ -f $$i/[Mm]akefile ]; then \ X echo "cd $$i; make all"; \ X (cd $$i; make all); \ X fi; \ X done X Xclean: X @-for i in [12][0-9][0-9]?; do \ X if [ -f $$i/[Mm]akefile ]; then \ X echo "cd $$i; make clean"; \ X (cd $$i; make clean); \ X fi; \ X done Xclobber: X @-for i in [12][0-9][0-9]?; do \ X if [ -f $$i/[Mm]akefile ]; then \ X echo "cd $$i; make clobber"; \ X (cd $$i; make clobber); \ X fi; \ X done Xinstall: X @-for i in [12][0-9][0-9]?; do \ X if [ -f $$i/[Mm]akefile ]; then \ X echo "cd $$i; make install"; \ X (cd $$i; make install); \ X fi; \ X done //E*O*F ./Makefile// echo Possible errors detected by \'wc\' [hopefully none]: temp=/tmp/shar$$ trap "rm -f $temp; exit" 0 1 2 3 15 cat > $temp <<\!!! 193 1346 8065 README 34 118 655 Makefile 227 1464 8720 total !!! wc ./README ./Makefile | sed 's=[^ ]*/==' | diff -b $temp - exit 0 -- [views above shouldn't be viewed as Amdahl views, or as views from Amdahl, or as Amdahl views views, or as views by Mr. Amdahl, or as views from his house]