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<title>The International Obfuscated C Code Contest</title>
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<div class="header">
  <img src="./png/ioccc.png" alt="IOCCC image by Matt Zucker" width=300 height=110>
  <h1>The International Obfuscated C Code Contest</h1>
  <h2>About the IOCCC GitHub repo</h2>
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    <div class="sidenav">
      <a href="./index.html">IOCCC Home</a>
      <a href="./years.html">Winning Entries</a>
      <a href="./authors.html">People who have won</a>
      <a href="./location.html">Location of authors</a>
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      <a href="./news.html">IOCCC News</a>
      <a href="./status.html">Contest status</a>
      <a href="./faq.html#submit">How to enter the IOCCC</a>
      <a href="./faq.html">FAQ</a>
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      <a href="./bugs.html">Bugs &amp; (mis)features</a>
      <a href="./faq.html#fix_an_entry">Fixing IOCCC entries</a>
      <a href="./faq.html#fix_web_site">Fixing the web site</a>
      <a href="./faq.html#fix_author">Fixing author info</a>
      <a href="./thanks-for-help.html">Thanks for the help</a>
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      <a href="./judges.html">The IOCCC Judges</a>
      <a href="./contact.html">Contacting the IOCCC</a>
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<h3 id="this-is-not-the-official-ioccc-web-site">This is NOT the
official IOCCC web site!</h3>
<p>Please visit <a href="https://www.ioccc.org">www.ioccc.org</a> for
the official <strong>IOCCC</strong> web site.</p>
<p>Please do NOT bookmark or link to this <a
href="https://ioccc-src.github.io/temp-test-ioccc/">experimental web
site</a>.</p>
<p>When this experiment is finished, this site will go away!</p>
<p>This test web tree is part of the <a
href="https://github.com/ioccc-src/temp-test-ioccc">temp-test-ioccc
GitHub repo</a>.</p>
<p>This web site will be undergoing major changes, so expect many broken
links, typos and other problems. If you wish to recommend changes
(understanding that things may be rapidly changing out from under your
copy), then consider making pull requests against the temp-test-ioccc
GitHub repo.</p>
<p>XXX - The text from the top down to the <em>What follows is the
actual README.md file</em> line will be removed when this web site
becomes official - XXX</p>
<h2
id="what-follows-is-the-actual-readme.md-file---remove-from-top-down-through-this-line---xxx">What
follows is the actual README.md file - Remove from top down through this
line - XXX</h2>
<h1 id="the-international-obfuscated-c-code-contest">The International
Obfuscated C Code Contest</h1>
<h2 id="obfuscate-verb-with-object"><strong>Obfuscate</strong> |
<em>verb</em> [with object]</h2>
<ul>
<li><p>render obscure, unclear, or unintelligible: the spelling changes
will deform some familiar words and obfuscate their etymological
origins.</p>
<ul>
<li>bewilder (someone): it is more likely to obfuscate people than
enlighten them. obfuscatory | adjective</li>
</ul>
<p>late Middle English (as adjective): from late Latin
<strong>obfuscat-</strong> ‘darkened’, from the verb
<strong>obfuscare</strong>, based on Latin <strong>fuscus</strong>
‘dark’.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2 id="obfuscation-noun"><strong>Obfuscation</strong> |
<em>noun</em></h2>
<ul>
<li><p>the action of making something obscure, unclear, or
unintelligible: when confronted with sharp questions they resort to
obfuscation | ministers put up mealy-mouthed denials and
obfuscations.</p>
<p>late Middle English: from late Latin <strong>obfuscatio(n-)</strong>,
from <strong>obfuscare</strong> ‘to darken or obscure’ (see
<em>obfuscate</em>).</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The official IOCCC web site is <a
href="https://www.ioccc.org">www.ioccc.org</a>.</p>
<h2 id="how-it-was-started">How it was started:</h2>
<p>The original inspiration of the International Obfuscated C Code
Contest came from the Bourne Shell source and the <code>finger(1)</code>
command as distributed in <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Berkeley_Software_Distribution#4.2BSD">4.2BSD</a>.
If this is what could result from what some people claim is reasonable
programming practice, then to what depths might quality sink if people
really tried to write poor code?</p>
<p>I put that question to the USENET news groups net.lang.c and
net.unix-wizards in the form of a contest. I selected a form similar to
the contest (<a href="https://www.bulwer-lytton.com">Bulwer-Lytton</a>)
that asks people to create the worst opening line to a novel (that
contest in turn was inspired by disgust over <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Clifford">a novel</a> by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bulwer-Lytton">Edward
Bulwer-Lytton</a> that opened with the line <em>“It was a dark and
stormy night.”</em>). The rules were simple: write, in 512 bytes or
less, the worst complete C program.</p>
<p>Thru the contest I have tried to instill two things in people. First
is a disgust for poor coding style. Second was the notion of just how
much utility is lost when a program is written in an unstructured
fashion. IOCCC winning entries help do this by what I call <em>satirical
programming</em>. To see why, observe one of the definitions of
<em>satire</em>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Keen or energetic activity of the mind used for the purpose of
exposing and discrediting vice or folly.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The authors of the winning entries placed a great deal of thought
into their programs. These programs in turn exposed and discredited what
I considered to be the programmer’s equivalent of “<em>vice or
folly</em>”.</p>
<p>There were two unexpected benefits that came from IOCCC winning
entries. First was an educational value to the programs. To understand
these C programs is to understand subtle points of the C programming
language. The second benefit is the entertainment value, which should
become evident as you read further!</p>
<h2
id="suggestions-on-how-to-understand-the-winning-entries">Suggestions on
how to understand the winning entries:</h2>
<p>You are strongly urged to try to determine what each program will
produce by visual inspection. Often this is an impossible task, but the
difficulty that you encounter should give you more appreciation for the
entry.</p>
<p>If you have the energy to type in the text, or if you have access to
a machine readable version of these programs, you should next consider
some preprocessing such as:</p>
<div class="sourceCode" id="cb1"><pre class="sourceCode sh"><code class="sourceCode bash"><span id="cb1-1"><a href="#cb1-1" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">sed</span> <span class="at">-e</span> <span class="st">&#39;/^#.*include/d&#39;</span> prog.c <span class="kw">|</span> <span class="fu">cc</span> <span class="at">-E</span></span></code></pre></div>
<p>This strips away comments and expands the program’s macros without
having things such as includes and macros cluttering up the output. If
the entry requires or suggests the use of compile line options (such as
<code>-Dindex=strchr</code>) they should be added after the
<code>-E</code> flag. See the entry index.html and/or Makefile. For the
Makefiles look at the variable <code>CDEFINE</code>.</p>
<p>The next stage towards understanding is to use a C beautifier or C
indenting program on the source. Be warned that a number of these
entries are so twisted that such tools may abort or become very
confused, sometimes even preventing them from compiling. You may need to
help out by doing some initial formatting with an editor. You might also
try renaming variables and labels to give more meaningful names. Be
aware, however, that some entries will not work if you rename variables,
even if you manage to determine where exactly they are (to say nothing
of the fact that the name might be elsewhere in the code).</p>
<p>Now try linting the program. You may be surprised at how little lint
complains about these programs. Pay careful attention to messages about
unused variables, wrong types, pointer conversions, etc. But be careful,
some lints produce incorrect error messages or even abort (or even
crash)! Your lint may detect syntax errors in the source. See the next
paragraph for suggestions on how to deal with this.</p>
<p>When you get to the stage where you are ready to compile the program,
examine the compilation comments above each entry. A simple
<code>#define</code> (or <code>-D</code> at the compiler) or edit may be
required due to differing semantics between operating systems. If you
are able to successfully compile the program, experiment with it by
giving it different arguments or input. You may also use the Makefile
provided to compile the program. Look at the <code>To build</code> and
<code>Try</code> sections at the top of the index.html for each entry as
well. Keep in mind that C compilers often have bugs, or features which
result the program failing to compile. You may have to do some syntax
changing as we did to get old programs to compile on strict ANSI C
compilers.</p>
<p>Last, read the judges’ remarks/spoilers on the program. Hints for
<code>foo.c</code> are given in <code>index.html</code>. Often they will
contain suggested arguments or recommended data to use. Authors also
sometimes give spoilers.</p>
<p>If you do gain some understanding of how a program works, go back to
the source and reexamine it using some of the techniques outlined above.
See if you can convince yourself of why the program does what it
does.</p>
<h2 id="regarding-the-source-archive">Regarding the source archive:</h2>
<p>Each sub-directory contains all the entries for a single year. Often
the file names match one of the last names of the author. Judges’ hints
are given in files of the form <code>index.html</code>.</p>
<p>You may need to tweak the Makefile to get everything to compile
correctly. Read the index.html files for suggestions.</p>
<p>The rules for a given year are given in the file named
<code>rules.txt</code>. Each archive contains a copy of the rules for
the upcoming contest.</p>
<p>The <a href="years.html">years.html</a> web page the official archive
of the winning entries.</p>
<h2 id="regarding-the-distribution-of-sources">Regarding the
distribution of sources:</h2>
<p>All contest results are in the public domain. We do ask that you
observe the following request:</p>
<p>You may share these files with others, but please do not prevent them
of doing the same. If some of these files and/or contest entries are
published in printed form, or if you use them in a business or classroom
setting, please let us know. We ask that you drop a line to the judges’
email box. See <a href="contact.html">contact.html</a> for instructions
on how to send us a message.</p>
<h2 id="some-final-things-to-remember">Some final things to
remember:</h2>
<p>While the idea for the contests has remained the same through the
years, the contest rules and guidelines vary. What was novel one year
may be considered common the next. The categories for awards differ
because they are determined after the judges examine all of the
entries.</p>
<p>The judges’ hints assume that the program resides in a file with the
same username as the author or <code>prog.c</code> (depending on the
year). Where there is more than one author, the first named author is
used. If an author wins more than one entry <em>per year</em> there are
different formats used but the first entry has 1 appended, the second
has 2 etc. In some years it was <code>.1</code> and <code>.2</code>
instead.</p>
<p>Some C compilers are unable to compile some of these programs. The
judges tried to select programs that were widely portable and
compilable, but did not always succeed. As of 1990, an entry may use
both <code>K&amp;R</code> and ANSI C compilers. Makefiles for both types
of C compilers are used. See the contest rules for details.</p>
<p>You are strongly encouraged to read the new contest rules before
sending any entries. The rules, and sometimes the contest email address
itself, change from time to time. A valid entry one year may be rejected
in a later year due to changes in the rules. See <a
href="news.html">news.html</a> for up to date information on how to
enter.</p>
<p>Last, PLEASE don’t code in the style of these programs It is hoped
that you will gain an understanding that poor style destroys an
otherwise correct program. Real programmers don’t write obfuscated
programs, unless they are submitting a contest entry! :-)</p>
<p>Happy pondering!</p>
<h2 id="about-the-ioccc-github-repository">About the IOCCC GitHub
repository</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://github.com/ioccc-src/winner">official IOCCC
entries GitHub repository</a> are the official entries that won the
<strong>International Obfuscated C Code Contest (IOCCC)</strong>, the
Internet’s oldest ongoing contest.</p>
<p><strong>IMPORTANT NOTE</strong>: See <a
href="contact.html">contact.html</a> for up to date contact details as
well as details on how to provide fixes to any of the entries. See also
<a href="faq.html">the IOCCC FAQ</a> for addition information on the
IOCCC.</p>
<h1 id="copyright-and-license">Copyright and License</h1>
<p>Copyright (C) 2020,2023,2024 Landon Curt Noll. All Rights Reserved.
This work is licensed under a <a
href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">Creative Commons
CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International</a> license.
If you do use this work in some form, the <a href="judges.html">IOCCC
judges</a> would appreciate (but do not require) if you were to <a
href="contact.html">send us a note about your use</a>.</p>

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