Third International Obfuscated C Code Contest

View the index.html web page for the given winning entry for information on how to compile it and how to run the winning program. Look at the winning source and try to figure how it does what it does! You may then wish to look at the Author’s remarks for even more details.

The rules for 1986 suggested categories due to the success of the 1985 judging method. The maximum size was increased from 512 to 1024 bytes. Larry Bassel joined as the second official judge.

A poll was taken for the worst code for BSD and System V program. The Bourne Shell (/bin/sh) won for both systems. The BSD finger program took third place.

Rules and results were posted to net.lang.c and net.unix-wizards. Micro/Systems Journal started regular publishing of the winning entries. The practice of making first announcement of the winning entries at the Summer USENIX BOF (Birds of a Feather) started this year. A notice was posted to net.announce.

Final Comments

IMPORTANT NOTE: See contact.html for up to date contact details as well as details on how to provide fixes to any of the entries. See also the IOCCC FAQ for addition information on the IOCCC.

Winning Entries of 1986 - The 3rd IOCCC

Download IOCCC 1986 entry source

• 1986/applin - Most adaptable program
• 1986/august - Best complex task done in a complex way
• 1986/bright - Most useful obfuscation
• 1986/hague - Worst abuse of the C preprocessor
• 1986/holloway - Best simple task performed in a complex way
• 1986/marshall - Best layout
• 1986/pawka - Most illegible code
• 1986/stein - Best one liner
• 1986/wall - Grand prize in most well-rounded in confusion

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