Look at the README.md file for the given winning entry for information on how to compile it and how to run the winning program. Look at the winning source and try to figure how it does what it does! You may then wish to look at the Author's remarks for even more details.

The IOCCC has a web site and now has a number of international mirrors. The primary site can be found at https://www.ioccc.org.

Use make to compile entries. It is possible that on non-Unix / non-Linux systems the Makefile needs to be changed. See the Makefile for details.

Read over the Makefile for compile/build issues. Your system may require certain changes (add or remove a library, add or remove a #define i.e. the -D flag).

Some ANSI C compilers are not quite as good as they should be. If yours is lacking, you may need to compile using gcc instead of your local compiler.

Remarks on some of the entries

There were some outstanding entries that did not win. Unfortunately some very good entries lost because they:

depended too much on non-portable side effects in expressions;
depended too much on a particular byte order;
required the use of a special script, data file or pseudo-machine language that was not supplied with the entry.

We hope the authors of some of those entries will fix and re-submit them for the next IOCCC.

We believe you will be impressed with this year's winners. The Best of Show is a fine example of obfuscation. But don't ignore the other winners! There are games, programs that speak, ones that compile code and one that might run binaries you already have.

The Best/Worst Abuse of the Rules is technically allowed by the rules. This year we awarded it again, but don't assume you can get away with using the same technique next time ... :-)

This year there were several repeat winners. This is understating the achievement a little - one person has won 8 times before! (Please note that judging is done completely anonymously.)

Why has it taken so long to post the winning source?

This is somewhat my (Simon Cooper's) fault. I do apologize to the IOCCC community for this! Judging does take quite a lot of time, and I over-committed myself several times this year. Without divulging too much, we do look at and work out what every entry does.

Final Comments

Please send us comments and suggestions what we have expressed above. Also include anything else that you would like to see in future contests. Send such email to:

questions@ioccc.org

If you use, distribute or publish these entries in some way, please drop us a line. We enjoy seeing who, where and how the contest is used.

You must include the words 'ioccc question' in the subject of your email message when sending email to the judges.

If you have problems with any of the entries, AND YOU HAVE A FIX, please email the fix (patch file or the entire changed file) to the above address.

Watch https://www.ioccc.org/ for news of the next contest.

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Copyright (C) Landon Curt Noll, Simon Cooper, Peter Seebach and Leonid A. Broukhis, 2001-2002. All Rights Reserved. Permission for personal, educational or non-profit use is granted provided this copyright and notice are included in its entirety and remains unaltered. All other uses must receive prior permission from the contest judges.