Author:

• Name: Larry Wall
  Location: US - United States of America (United States)

To build:

    make all

There is an alternate version for those with a compiler that support -traditional-cpp. See Alternate code below.

To use:

    ./wall

Alternate code:

This version is the original but which can be used if you have a compiler that supports the -traditional-cpp option.

Alternate build:

        make alt

Alternate use:

Use wall.alt as you would wall above.

Judges’ remarks:

The original version did not have a ‘;’ character in the first line. This caused a number of System V C pre-preprocessors to gripe about a syntax error.

This program is a masterpiece of obfuscation and humor. Larry Wall (the hacker who gave us rn and patch, etc.) asks you to compile and consider the warning message generated by the C compiler. Then execute the program and type characters into its standard input. You will see why the compiler documents the program.

Author’s remarks:

No remarks were provided by the author.

Primary files

• wall.c - entry source code
• Makefile - entry Makefile
• wall.alt.c - alternate source code
• wall.orig.c - original source code

Secondary files

• 1986_wall.tar.bz2 - download entry tarball
• README.md - markdown source for this web page
• .entry.json - entry summary and manifest in JSON
• .gitignore - list of files that should not be committed under git
• .path - directory path from top level directory
• index.html - this web page

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