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
Bugs and (Mis)features:
The current status of this entry is:
STATUS: doesn't work with some platforms - please help us fix it
For more detailed information see 2011/richards in bugs.html.
To use:
echo expression | ./richards
Try:
./try.sh
Judges' remarks:
Oh no, yet another
dc-style calculator? (see
2000/dlowe using an embedded Perl interpreter and deemed Worst Abuse of the Rules). Well, this one does it (expression calculation, that is,
not the rule abuse) in a different way. The author claims that his calculator
does just-in-time compilation. What would you do to prove or disprove his claim
without attempting to unravel the source?
Author's remarks:
This is an implementation of the classic UNIX
dc command, the
reverse Polish
calculator. Actually it's a pretty bad implementation, since it only implements
32-bit integers (well, sizeof(int)-sized integers). It only implements the
commands +, -, *, /, p (only for numbers), register stacks, macros and
comparisons. Wow, you'd think I could've done better in 2K of code.
OH! I forgot to mention! It's a JIT.
Wait, don't stop reading! I know what you're thinking, platform-specific code is discouraged in IOCCC. But do you see any platform-specific code? There's no assembler here! This JIT works on a dozen platforms, and the only platform-specific assumptions it makes are that the stack grows down and integers are at least 32-bit.
You will probably get warnings while compiling the code. In particular:
-
If your system requires the inclusion of
alloca.hto use alloca, use the compile flag-DAH. -
If your system cannot use
mmap(), use the compile flag-DNM. -
I don't include any headers I don't strictly need to, so you'll get warnings about (at least)
memcpy(),isdigit(),atoi(),calloc(),malloc()andalloca()if you didn't use-DAH. - NOTE from judges: we added these includes in 2023. -
GCC likes to complain about
while (a = b)(assignments as a condition). -
I don't return from
main(), even though it's declared to returnint.
Platforms on which all known/tested optimization levels work with no additional flags:
- gcc 4.6.2 + x86[_64] + GNU/Linux, Mac OS X or Windows
- clang 2.9-16 + x86[_64] + GNU/Linux or Mac OS X
- tcc 0.9.25
- gcc 4.4.5 + alpha, arm, mips[el], powerpc[64], s390x (IBM zSeries)
- gcc 4.1.3 + vax + NetBSD
Platforms which work but not at all optimization levels or needing special flags:
- owcc 1.9 + x86 + Windows: Needs
-DNM -DAH -fno-stack-check - gcc 4.4.5 + sh4:
-O0works, higher optimization levels don't work for unknown reasons.