Landon Curt Noll
d414b6d71f
Improved `all-run.sh` and `readme2index.sh` so that certain command line options (e.g., -p, -P, -u, -U ...) are only passed along to other tools if they are given on the command line. all-run.sh VERSION changed from "1.1.1 2024-01-19" to "1.1.2 2024-01-20", readme2index.sh VERSION changed from "1.1 2024-01-16" to "1.1.1 2024-01-20". Added `quick-readme2index.sh` that only calls `readme2index.sh` if the `index.html` is not a non-empty file, or of either `.winner.json` and/or `README.md` is newer than `index.html`. Updated all `index.html` files because the the file contains a comment that includes the newly modified readme2index.sh VERSION.
2014 marked the "The Twenty Third International Obfuscated C Code Contest"
Standard IOCCC stuff
The IOCCC has a web site and now has a number of international mirrors. The primary site can be found at,
Use make to compile entries. It is possible that on non-Un*x / non-Linux systems the makefile needs to be changed. See the Makefile for details.
Look at the source and try to figure out what the programs do, and run them with various inputs. If you want to, look at the hints files for spoilers - this year we included most of the information included by the submitter.
Read over the makefile for compile/build issues. Your system may require certain changes (add or remove a library, add or remove a #define).
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
We believe you will again be impressed with this year's winners.
This year, 2014:
We, the judges, were very surprised by this as many of the multiple winners submitted very different styles of entries.
This year was the second time the IOCCC size tool was used. Rule 2 required that when program source is fed as input to the current IOCCC size tool, and the IOCCC size tool -i command line option is used, the value printed should be less than or equal to 2053.
We were pleased to see that abuse of the rules was extended to abuse to the IOCCC size tool. Matt Zucker, followed by a few users, were able to discover cleaver use of certain // comments to perplex the size tool. The abuse was so bad that the judges released a critical and mandatory patch to the IOCCC size tool on 2014-09-23.
There were some great entries that did not win. Unfortunately some entries lost because they:
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were too large according the IOCCC size tool and didn't even attempt to justify their excess by a clever abuse of the rules
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depended on a single obfuscation trick
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didn't work as documented
We hope the authors of some of those entries will fix and re-submit them for the next IOCCC.
There is a risk in submitting an entry that is similar to a well used theme by previous winners. Previous winners set a very high bar. A new winner must not only compete against submissions from the current year, they must also excel over any similar winners in some particularly impressive way.
On the delay in releasing the winners
We apologize on the delay of sending the winners the tarball for them to review. There were some unforeseen events, such as unplanned mandatory business travel, the death of a IOCCC judge mother, etc. that impacted our planned schedule for building the IOCCC winner tarball.
During some of these forced delays, we took the time to better automate some of the tools needed to package the source for the winners to review and to post the edited winners to the web site. It is our intent that these changes made during those delays will make releasing future IOCCC winners a faster procedure.
p.s. The final advice given to Landon by his mom: "Have fun." We recommend following this advice were possible.
Final Comments
Please feel free to send us comments and suggestions about the competition, this README or anything else that you would like to see in future contests.
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.
If you have problems with any of the entries, AND YOU HAVE A FIX, please send us the fix (patch file or the entire changed file).
For the latest information on how to contact the IOCCC Judges please visit
For news of the next contest watch:
Copyright and License
Copyright (C) 2014,2024, Landon Curt Noll and Leonid A. Broukhis. All Rights Reserved. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. If you do use this work in some form, the IOCCC judges would appreciate (but does not require) if you were to send us a note about your use.