A tiny self-remaking C program
humprog.org
humprog.org
#if 0
TMP=$(mktemp -d);
c++ -std=c++11 -o ${TMP}/a.out ${0} && ${TMP}/a.out ${@:1}; RV=${?};
rm -rf ${TMP};
exit ${RV};
#endif
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
std::cout << "Hello, world!\n";
}
(the trailing semi-colons in the script part is to make my editor indent the C++ code properly)I was having fun with old Golang C code before they started bootstrapping in Go and have found they were using interpunct to separate function names, so I decided to play around with shellscript-like C code to goof around:
#if 0
set -e; [ "$0" -nt "$0.bin" ] &&
gcc -O2 -Wall -Wextra -Wpedantic -std=c11 "$0" -o "$0.bin" -s
exec "$0.bin" "$@"
#endif
#include <stdio.h>
void runtime·sysAlloc(void);
int main(void)
{
unsigned age = 44;
printf("I am %u years old.\n", age);
runtime·sysAlloc();
return 0;
}
void runtime·sysAlloc(void) {
printf("Hello from C code, %d!\n", 90);
}If you aren't familiar, quines are programs which produce their own source as their only output. They're quite interesting and worth a dive if you haven't explored them before.
My personal favorites are the radiation-hardened variety, which still produce the original pre-modified source even when any single character is removed before the program is run.
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,d)){[a-c,b-d]};D=->((a,b),(c,d)){(a*c.conj).real+b*d};R=->((a,b),(c,d)){e,f=a.rect;g,h=c.rect;[C[f*d-b*h,b*g-e*d],e*h-f*g]};a=[];b=[];6.times{|i|a<<[P[1,i/3.0],1];b<<[P
[2,(i+0.5)/3.0],0]};F=[a];6.times{|j|F<<[a[i=j-1],b[i],a[j]]<<[a[j],b[i],b[j]]<<[b[i],[0,-2],b[j]]};J=->k,v{k=[k/500.0,0].min+2.5;(v/(k+0.5)+C[k,k/2])*48};r=0;T=->p{x,y=
p.rect;z =O[y/2];x>=0&&y>=0&&z&&z[x]&&z[x]|=(y%2>1?2:1)|r};L=->p,q{s=(p+q)/2;(p-q).abs<1?(T[s];q):L[L[p,s],q]};N=->((a,b)){s=(a.abs2+b*b)**0.5;[a/s,b/s]};E=->p,r,a{10
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es{|i|e<<(( x=(x+ k**1.9/9e4+0.001)%8)>4?138:118)};f<<e.pack("C*")}}};I=(0..48).map{[0]*169 };9.t imes{ |y|76.times{|x|"1ea8yyjb v4x7d zlzqj sxd8dz4uqjfpb66bq7tu6l
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leep(1);k= =q& &(n=rand(11);q+=m;m-=2 ;spawn("espeak","-s",(60+m*2).to_s,"-ven+#{n<7?"m #{n+ 1}":"f#{n-6}"}",["keep",k< 320| |k>360?"ruby":"Austin","
weird"]*32 .c hr));a=[-k,0].max**1.9/ 1e4;v ,z=d=N[[P[1,a/3],Math.sin(Math::PI*a)]];u=N[z==0 ? [0,-1]:z>0?[v,z-1/z]:[-v,1/z-z]] ; n=R[d,u];O.replace(U.map{
|l|l+ [ ]});F.m ap{ |f|a, b,c=f;D [R[S[b,a],S[c,a]],d]>0&&f.size.times{|i|a,b=f[ i], f[i-1];L[J[k,C[D[n,a],D[u,a]]],J[k,C[D [n, b],D[u,b]]]]}};k>0&&(b=M
ath. sin( [k,210] .m i n* Math : :PI /15)/36;a=P[1,b*2];y=(30-[k,30].min)/10.0-2.8; E[C[ -1.2,y]*a.conj,(2-k/10%2)*0.06,-1];E[C [-1. 2,y]*a.conj,0.45,-1];E[C
[-1. 2,y +1.1]*a, 2. 7 5, b-0. 3]; E[C[-0.6,y+0.5]*a,1.85,b-0.25]);k>=90&&k<210&&2 .tim es{|i|G[(k-90)*2+i].scan(/./){|c|Z[i]+ =[C[ 1,0],C[0,2],C[-1,0],C[0,
-2]][c . ord%4]} ;i = k/ 10% 7*8+92 ;U[Z[0]. imag/2][Z[0].real,2]=U[Z[1].imag/2][Z [1]. real,2]=[i,i];r=8;L[J[k,C[-1.2,-2.8] *a.c onj],Z[0]];L[J[k,C[1.2,-
2.8]*a], Z[ 1]];r=0} ; j= 0;k==400&&15.times{|y|65.times{|x|"7gtz whx13 bfmrr9tsr8y0d007qlmygnh47axi9g9v609t cxjuv la0k6y1r96drdisqmfpao411
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l|i=0;j+ =1;l.m ap{|n|(i+=1)>2& &i<8 3&&k>260&&k<420&&((k-j/6)%80>60||k>320&&k<400&&I[j- 1][i]>0 )&&n=88;a=("%c^_@****"%32)[n%8]; n>7?"%c [%dm%s%c[0m"%[27,30+n/8,
a,27]:a} *""};$><<A+"[H"+(0..47).ma p{|i |k+i>517?$s[i].chomp.gsub(32.chr){27.chr+"[44m"+$&+ 27.chr+" [0m"}:s[i]}*10.chr;sleep(0.0 2)};puts }*'');%q{%q.;eval$s=%qev
al(%w$s= ("%q.;eval$s=%q$s"+'.gsub(/ 27. chr<<92<<91[0-9]+m/,"")').lines;C=->x,yComplex(x,y) ;P=->r,a Complex.polar(r,a*Math::PI );S=->(( a,b),(c,d))[a-c,b-d];D=-
>((a,b), (c,d) )(a*c.conj). re al+b*d;R=->((a,b),(c ,d))e,f=a. rect;g,h=c.rect;[ C[f*d-b*h ,b*g-e*d],e*h-f*g];a=[ ];b=[];6. times|i|a<<[P[1,i/3.0],1]
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(p+q)/2;(p-q).a bs<1?(T[s] ;q ):L[L[p,s ], q];N=- >((a ,b)) s=(a.abs2+b*b)**0.5;[a /s, b/s];E=- >p,r,a10 0.times| i|m =-P[r,1.5+i*a*0.02];c,d=(p+
m).rect;(c.abs- d>2||d<-1) && (T[J[0,p+ m] ];T[J[ 0,C[- c, d]]]);A=27.chr;$><<"%q 33.ch r+A[HA [2J";g="NZDD CLYJXM X;YK( OQ'PPYZA5YTZ7M(VOBBSYVXQQ[
SUZV(U:G[NVZ[ZS &V[(YUU(ZT T[ [X'X&Y%Y' ZZ WW[ 'Z&$$[%( '''(&[$(%($(CRGZHZI)D IOZ;IVP Z(SP )[X*DRZCGJJT<<+X I,%% :S=[E== RE&LEXX-'.RMY:(>>U(HU/U[
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00.downto(0)|k| e=[];3 00.time s|i|e<<( (x =(x+k** 1.9/9e 4+0.001)%8)>4?13 8:118);f<<e.pa ck("C*");I=(0..48).map[0]*16 9;9.times|y|76 .times|x|"1ea8yyj
bv4x7dzlzqjsxd8 dz4uqjf pb66bq 7tu6lwql 6v dbds6f6 h60xz 2iglxie44ax1nygti e5t8xpgk2oq00uzj0
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wn("espeak","-s ",(60+m*2 ).to _s,"-ve n+n <7?"mn +1": "fn-6"",["keep",k<320|| k>360?"ruby" :"Austin","weird"]*32.chr) );a=[-k,0].m ax**1.9/1e4;v,z=d=N[[
P[1,a/3],Math. sin(Math::P I*a) ]];u= N[z= =0? [0,- 1]:z>0?[v,z-1/z]:[-v,1/z-z ]];n=R[d,u] ;O.replace(U.map|l|l+[]) ;F.map|f|a, b,c=f;D[R[S[b,a],S[c,a]
],d]>0&&f.size .times|i|a, b=f[i] ,f[i-1] ;L[J[k, C[D[n,a],D[u,a]]],J[k,C[D[n, b],D[u,b]] ]];k>0&&(b=Math.sin([k ,210].min* Math::PI/15)/36;a=P[1,b*2
];y=(30-[k,30] .min)/10.0-2.8;E[C[-1.2,y]*a.conj,(2-k/10%2)*0.06,-1];E[C[-1.2,y]*a.conj,0.45,-1] ;E[C[-1.2 ,y+1.1]*a,2.75,b-0.3 ];E[C[-0. 6,y+0.5]*a,1.85,b-0.25]);k>
=90&&k<210&&2.times|i|G[(k-90)*2+i].scan(/. /)|c|Z[i]+=[C[1, 0],C[0,2],C[-1,0],C[0,-2]][c.ord%4]; i=k/10%7 *8+92;U[Z[0].imag/ 2][Z[0]. real,2]=U[Z[1].imag/2][Z[1].r
eal,2]=[i,i];r=8;L[J[k,C[-1.2,-2.8]*a.conj],Z[0]];L[J[k,C[1.2,- 2.8]*a],Z[1]];r=0;j=0;k==400&&15.time s|y|65. times|x|"7gtzwhx 13bfmrr 9tsr8y0d007qlmygnh47axi9g9v609t
cxjuvla0k6y1r 96drdisqmf pao4 11n6 e661 l 3zyktb qkp4i33eecq7i2utfm2n0bhrviijbr51nwcuhm 5ufx3t 79a9whf01e3a8k zzepid 45ro83n9r07kxxeht1pycrqo72".to_i(
36)[x+y*65]>0 &&U[ 21+y] [1 4+x]=8 8;s= O.ma p|l|i= 0;j+= 1;l.map|n|(i+=1)>2&&i<83&&k>260&&k<420& &((k- j/6)%80>60|| k>320 &&k<400&&I[j-1][i]>0)&&n=88;a=("%c^
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chr+"[0m":s[i] *10 .chr; sl eep(0.02 ); puts *'');% q%q.;e val$ s=%qeval(%w$s=("%q.;eval$s=%q$s"+'. gsu b(/27.ch r<< 92<<91[0-9]+m/,"")').lines;C=->x,yCompl
ex(x,y);P=->r,aC om plex .pola r(r ,a*Ma th::PI); S=- >((a,b),(c,d))[a-c,b-d];D=->((a,b),(c ,d ))(a*c .c onj).real+b*d;R=->((a,b),(c,d))e,f=a.rect
;g,h=c.rect;[C[f*d-b*h,b*g-e*d],e*h-f*g];a=[] ;b= [];6.t imes|i |a<<[P[1,i/3.0],1];b<<[P[2,(i+0.5)/3.0],0];F=[ a ];6. t imes|j|F<<[a[i=j-1],b[i],a[j]]<<[a[j],b[i],
b[j]]<<[b[i],[0,-2],b[j]];J=->k,vk=[k/500.0,0].min+2.5;(v/( k+0.5)+C[k,k/2])*48;r=0;T=->px,y=p.rect;z=O[y/2]; x> =0&&y>=0&&z&&z[x]&&z[x]|=(y%2>1?2:1)|r;L=->p,
qs=(p+q)/2;(p-q).abs<1?(T[s];q):L[L[p,s],q];N=->((a,b))s=(a.abs2+b*b)**0.5;[a/s,b/s];E=->p,r,a100.times|i|m=-P[r,1.5+i *a*0.02];c,d=(p+m).rect;(c.abs-d>2||d<-1)&&(T[J
[0,p+m]];T[J[0,C[-c,d]]]);A=27.chr;$><<"%q33.chr+A[HA[2J";g="NZDDCLYJXMX;YK(OQ'PPYZA5YTZ7M(VOBBSYVXQQ[SUZV(U:G[NVZ[ZS&V[(YUU(ZTT[[X'X&Y%Y'ZZWW['Z&$$[%('''(&[$(%($(CRGZHZ
I)DIOZ;IVPZ(SP)[X*DRZCGJJT<<+XI,%%:S=[E==RE&LEXX-'.RMY:(>>U(HU/U[/[RKOO0Y$1F?LZ%&M@(2NGU341RU?+6S2(NVYVAFVR(8FFRYRN4W'NHI@>(EUM6H@Z}}.gsub(/#{27.chr<<92<<91}[0-9]+m/,"") /#{eval eval if eval==instance_eval}}/.i rescue##/
This code path is carefully designed so that it always remains a valid Ruby code in any case and will execute the following line only when `eval` was not called. This kind of principle drives the entire source code.> also for "bit flips" i.e. a changed character?
No. You can trivially make it invalid by changing the first character (`e`) to, say, `%` or 0xE5. It will be generally impossible to make such program for many languages with fixed classes of code characters.
I have long been thinking the same. And also: "Running tests is the first stage of deploying in production" etc.
In other words: There is often a whole dependency graph between various stages (install toolchain, install 3rd-party dependencies, do code generation, compile, link/bundle, test, run, …) and each of those stages should ideally be a pure function mapping inputs to outputs. In my experience, we often don't do a good job making this graph explicit, nor do we usually implement build steps as pure functions or think of build systems as another piece of software which needs to be subject to the same quality criteria that we apply to any other line of code we write. As a result, developer experience ends up suffering.
Large JavaScript projects are particularly bad in this regard. Dependencies, auto-generated code and build output live right alongside source code, essentially making them global state from the point of view of the build system. The package.json contains dozens of "run" commands which more often than not are an arcane mix of bash scripts invoking JS code. Even worse, those commands typically need to be run in juuust the right order because they all operate on the same global state. There is no notion of one command depending on another. No effort put into isolating build tasks from each other and making them pure. No caching of intermediate results. Pipelines take ages even though they wouldn't have to. Developers get confused because a coworker introduced a new npm command yesterday which now needs be to run before anything else. Ugghhh.
It follows that build systems should be written in terms of real, encapsulated APIs that separate interface from implementation.
Make-like build systems are like programming in assembly language: there is no structure that isolates one build step from another. Make offers no way of creating a "local variable" -- an intermediate file that is hidden from any other build step. The filesystem is like memory: as long as you can figure out the filename (address) somehow, you can read and write whatever you want.
Even if you can declare that one build step depends on another, there's usually nothing that prevents a step from reading (or even writing!) files from other build steps that it did not declare a dependency on.
What you want is a build system that lets you define real APIs, with truly private state. For example, cc_library() in Bazel (cxx_library() in Buck2) lets you define a C++ library in terms of the srcs/hdrs/etc, but you don't know how it will be implemented. Other rules and targets can consume the outputs of cc_library(), but only the files that are publicly exposed in the returned providers.
This model brings true encapsulation to build systems, which makes it much more feasible to change implementation details without breaking users.
Which is to say that you can perfectly well implement a "clean" build setup with make, and provide an "interface" for parts of the system to tie into. Files and directories are as good an input/output interface as any other, and you can do some simple safeguards with permissions on directories and files.
To create a local, intermediate file with make, you create a file in TMPDIR (eg with mktemp or tempfile) and remove it at the end, setting the permissions the way you want for any nested steps not to be able to access it.
It's an interesting exercise working out what is both a comment in the target language but is also an executable shell script. For C it's reasonably straightforward but for OCaml it's quite subtle:
https://libguestfs.org/nbdkit-cc-plugin.3.html#C-plugin-as-a... https://libguestfs.org/nbdkit-cc-plugin.3.html#Using-this-pl...
I'm guessing that this (IBM) example is setting the delimeter to '@@' to avoid problems with the comment - JCL also understands the '/*' sequence. I've not seen it used with other languages (Cobol etc.)
//jobname JOB acctno,name...
//COMPILE EXEC PGM=CCNDRVR,
// PARM='/SEARCH(''CEE.SCEEH.+'') NOOPT SO OBJ'
//STEPLIB DD DSNAME=CEE.SCEERUN,DISP=SHR
// DD DSNAME=CEE.SCEERUN2,DISP=SHR
// DD DSNAME=CBC.SCCNCMP,DISP=SHR
//SYSLIN DD DSNAME=MYID.MYPROG.OBJ(MEMBER),DISP=SHR
//SYSPRINT DD SYSOUT=*
//SYSIN DD DATA,DLM=@@
#include <stdio.h>
⋮
int main(void)
{
/* comment */
⋮
}
@@
//SYSUT1 DD DSN=...
⋮
//*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_Control_Language#In-stream...*Debian is pretty far off from this vision (if we also want performant execution), but I wonder how do the Gentoo, ArchLinux and Nix fare in this regard? Is this something that could be viably built with their current packaging formats?
freebsd/gentoo ports comes close where if you pretend that pkg doesn't exist, or at least imagine a world where it's only used for the absolute minimum necessary bootstrap, then ports is probably the closest.
The source is still actually a seperate thing even then so I think even ports with no pkg usage is still not really there.
Imagine the package itself being the source, the one and only form of the package is the source. If it builds an executable, that executable is actually just an automatically generated throw-away artifact that you don't care about and don't save or distribute. Maybe most normal users don't even know where the compiled bin really lives, buried in some /var tree or something, or maybe even in a kind of kernel level db. All the user ever overtly interacts with is actually the self-building source package. When you want to copy it or delete it etc, that's the only thing you touch and everything else is just automatically managed cache.
Then it's not merely easy to get the source and modify it, it's simply THE package in the first place. If you can even run a thing, then you automatically and indellibly also have the full source to that thing. That would be pretty huge I think.
It would probably result in slow installs and updates like gentoo or freebsd ports, but only if we only imagine switching to this today as the only variable changed, out of context, without also imagining the last 40 years of tooling and os development optimizing pain points to make whatever we do most go faster, if we had decided to package apps this way all along.
There is an obvious bootstrapping issue (there has to be a compiler for any language you want to compile, including the one your compiler is in), but it's certainly interesting food for thought.
/*usr/bin/env echo 'Hello World!' #*/
Even if, for some reason, there are multiple `usr` folders, the use of `env` means it will eventually call the executable.As for getting rid of the shebang - swapping the ! with a / means that the line and character counts don't change so you get meaningful error messages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_shell
It seems like you are on your way to making the C++ shell.
#include <stdio.h>
#define true
true /*:all
CC=cc
PROG=tomx
false :
make -f $0 $1
exit 0
all: $(PROG)
%:%.c
$(CC) $< -o $@
clean:
rm $(PROG)
.PHONY: /* true clean */
int main() {return!printf("Hello, world\n");}
(All indentations here are actually tabs.)As a Makefile, again `#` lines are ignored and variable declarations are compatible but lines starting with `true<WS>` and `false<WS>` have to be a valid construct, so they are made into rules. Make doesn't rely much on the rule's recipe (you can do way more weird things by setting `SHELL` to non-shells by the way!), so indented lines are essentially ignored unless the rule is triggered. Next lines are usual stuffs for Makefile. As `true` (and anything follows, see the next paragraph) would be the first and thus default rule target, it has to trigger `all` manually and ensure that `all` is always executed in this way by setting the final `.PHONY` rule.
As a C source code, `#` lines are now preprocessor directives and used to hide the first `true` token from the compiler. As an identifier followed by a colon wouldn't be a valid C code at the top level, `true` should be followed by a comment which extends to the second-to-last line. (There is no technical reason for `*/` to be a requisite here I believe.) The final line is an usual indented C code, which is a part of `.PHONY` which recipe is ignored. Since Make will interpret `/*` as path patterns, they have to be also handled by `.PHONY`.
A true IOCCC winner.
One tip for folks trying to figure out this (and other multi-modal) code is to use your editor's syntax highlight feature based on filetype. So for example in vim renaming this file to ".sh" and ".mk" gives you shell script and makefile structures.
"$0".bin: -c: line 0: unexpected EOF while looking for matching `''
"$0".bin: -c: line 1: syntax error: unexpected end of filethats the one i've been using. feel free to adopt and change.