Author:

• Name: Ferenc Deak
  Location: ZZ - Unknown location

To build:

    make

There is an alternate version that the author provided but fixed in 2023 to compile with modern systems and to allow one to reconfigure the constants X1, X2, Y1 and Y2 (which were magic numbers). See Alternate code below.

To use:

    ./prog

Try:

    ./prog

Try changing bounding box coordinates in the source to explore various regions of the fractal.

Alternate code:

The alternate code is included as prog.alt.c so you can more easily see the difference in what it might look like if the C was more recognisable and also to let you reconfigure the coordinates.

Alternate build:

    make alt

If you wish to redefine the coordinates you can do so by defining X1, X2, Y1 and/or Y2, which default to: -2, 1, -1.3 and 1.3 respectively. For instance:

    make clobber X1=-3 X2=2 Y1=-2.3 Y2=2.3 alt

You may pick and choose which ones to redefine.

Alternate use:

Use prog.alt as you would prog.

Alternate try:

    ./try.alt.sh

Judges’ remarks:

We consider this entry a tribute to all “Abuse of the C preprocessor” and Mandelbrot fractal drawing entries we’ve seen over the years.

We liked the use of unary notation facilitated by variadic macros.

Author’s remarks:

Portability

The application was written on a standard Ubuntu 14.04 and tested with gcc 4.9.1 and clang 3.5 on a 64 bit system (though this should not matter). The application makes no assumption regarding any system specific settings, and it only needs a console to run. The provided Makefile is just to have an easy compilation. I don’t see any problems porting it to different compiler/system as long as it supports the C99 standard.

The application

The purpose of the application is mainly to illustrate the weird possibilities of the C preprocessor, rather than to be a full featured console mode Mandelbrot drawer. There are tools much better suited for drawing fractals.

The usage of recognizable elements from the C programming language in the application source code is intentionally kept to a bare minimum. If this phrase would not be true, the application would be the following:

    double                                 _[]={-2
    ,1,-1.3                ,1.3,  0,         0,0,0
    ,0               ,0,50, 80,     0,0,0     ,255
    ,               8,0};    int      main       (
                   int j) {if (j==  1 ){ if(
           _[12]      >_[10]  )_[17]=1 ;}  if
       (_[13] >_[11     ] ||_[17]==1)  return 1
     ;_[6]   =  _ [13] / _[11]*(_[1]-_[   0])
    +_[  0];  _ [7]=_[12]/_[10]*(_[3]-_[2] )+_
    [2];_[8]=_[9]=_[14]=0;l2:_[4]=_[8] * _ [8]
    ;_[  5]=  _ [9]*_[9];_[9]=2*_[8]*_[9]+ _[7
     ];_[8   ]  = _ [ 4 ]-_[5]+_[6];_[14   ]++
       ;if((_ [14]<     _ [15])&&(_[4]+ _[ 5]
           <_[16      ])) goto l2;  putchar(
                   " #@*+   "[( int)  _[14]%
    5             ]);_ [13   ] ++ ;   main       (
    0)               ;_[12]++;      _[13]       =0
    ;if(_                [17]    !=1)      putchar
    (0xa);                               main(1);}

The application expects no parameters, the only way you can change the behaviour is to modify the source code at the indicated location: the line /* <-- Configure here: X1, X2, Y1, Y2 */ is intentionally not obfuscated so that the adventurous programmer can manually modify the coordinates of the fractal to be drawn on the screen.

Compiler warnings

Yes, unfortunately there are compiler warnings of the kind “initialization makes integer from pointer without a cast” but the provided Makefile automatically disables them.

Primary files

• prog.c - entry source code
• Makefile - entry Makefile
• prog.alt.c - alternate source code
• prog.orig.c - original source code
• try.alt.sh - script to try alternate code

Secondary files

• 2014_deak.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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