Landon Curt Noll
f29b37e49a
Prepare for the winners of **IOCCC28**. > However these are not the 2024 droids you are looking for. :-) The HTML menu (both JavaScript and non-JavaScript) has been updated. The `Status -> Rules and guidelines' have been replaced with two separate menus `Status -> IOCCC rules` and `Status -> IOCCC guidelines`. Added a new top level `social.html` page: built from a new `social.md`. Sorted rules for building specific web pages in the top level `Makefile`. Added `make social` to make the `social.html` page from `social.md`. The `bin/gen-top-html.sh` now is able to process a argument of **social** to process the new top level `social.html` page. Changed `bin/gen-top-html.sh` VERSION from "2.0.0 2025-03-13" to "2.0.1 2025-07-25". Below `About -> Home page` a new `About -> IOCCC social media` menu item as added. Because the menu change touched every HTML file, we changed the general copyright date range for HTML files from "1984-2024" to "1984-2025" due to the extensive changes made for **IOCCC28**. Those markdown files that were modified in 2025 had their copyright date range also changed from "1984-2024" to "1984-2025". Rebuilt tarballs and sitemap due to the extensive HTML rebuilding. Ran `make update` to perform the above.
To build:
make
There is an alternate version of this entry. See Alternate code below for more details.
To use:
./prog < textfile
Try:
./try.sh
Alternate code:
Compare prog.c and prog.alt.c and find out why we had to modify the entry, and what confused the author (see the author's remarks). No, it was not the shape of the Roman V that we, or the compiler, didn't like.
Alternate build:
make alt
Alternate use:
Use prog.alt as you would prog above.
Alternate try:
./try.alt.sh
Judges' remarks:
With this entry, you won't need to turn your monitor upside down!
Author's remarks:
Compiling the program:
cc -Wall -Wextra -Wpedantic -O3 -std=c11 prog.c -o prog
Also works with a standard of C99, but C90/C89 will not compile due to
for loop initial declarations, along with additional warnings about
variable length arrays and lack of a return statement.
Additional info:
This small program, when given text on stdin, will produce a pattern of
squiggly lines. This pattern is deterministic, and it shouldn't be too
difficult to determine from whence they come. There is even a comment
that describes the highlighted phenomena in the source, for those that
require a small nudge. With denser text blocks, such as an essay or
similar prose, the output can be rather pretty, in an chaotic emergence
sort of way. Try using this file, or the source file as inputs.
In its current form, this program can handle lines of length 255; to
adjust this limit, change the variable a at the top of the source.
Other adjustments, such as the exact printed characters, are rather
easy, once sufficient reverse engineering has occurred. Improvements
such as proper handling of tabs are left as an exercise to the reader.
In developing this program, the author found a potentially interesting
bug. If the expression (j=k,j) (near the middle of the source) is
changed to (j=k,k), the program produces different output. The author
used gcc 5.4.0, compiled for x86_64-linux-gnu. Enabling or
disabling optimization produces the same results. The author is not
sure who is the culprit, but instead shrugged and moved on with life.
Of course, YMMV with your own environment.
The structure of this program, as you may have deduced, is two for
loops, one nested in the other. There are also a bunch of direct
variable assignments, such as j=k. There is some filler fluff, such as
0-0+0, but all that sort should be rather easy to spot. It was mostly
added for the purpose of making certain things line up right, and only
secondarily to obfuscate.