IOCCC image by Matt Zucker

The International Obfuscated C Code Contest

1986/marshall - Best layout

train engine-shaped program prints choo choo

Author:

To build:

    make all

NOTE: we FORCE disable the optimiser due to a funny problem with different compilers and systems. See below and compilers.html for details.

There is an alternate version. The reason is a funny problem: in modern systems, depending on the platform, compiler and whether or not the optimiser is enabled, it might work with one compiler but non the other. But then if you swap the optimiser state the compiler that worked would no longer work and the compiler that did not work would. We describe this in more detail in compilers.html and we encourage you to read it for entertainment if nothing else.

To use:

    ./marshall

Alternate code:

Due to the different conflicting problems with gcc and clang, we offer the problematic code as an alternate version whereas marshall.c has both the loop (that turned into an infinite loop) commented out and the complicated arg to _exit(2) commented out, changing the value passed into _exit() to 1.

Alternate build:

To see if your compiler has the problems noted above and in compilers.html, first build the alternate code:

    make alt

Alternate use:

Once the alternate code is built, see if your compiler has the problem:

    ./marshall.alt

Does it work in your system? That is does it print the text only once and does it not enter an infinite loop? In other words, does it print the text exactly once and then exit, without dumping core?

Judges’ remarks:

This program prints the name of the picture. The layout is somewhat pretty though it is not the usual sort of output one would expect from printing a program!

This program was selected for the 1987 t-shirt collection.

Author’s remarks:

No remarks were provided by the author.

Inventory for 1986/marshall

Primary files

Secondary files


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