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  • fine
    [WPI] adj. Good, but not good enough to be {cuspy}. The word `fine' is used elsewhere, of course, but without the implicit comparison... VIEW ENTIRE DEFINITION


    •  View Definition: quine 

    quine

    [from the name of the logician Willard V. Quine, via Douglas Hofstadter] n. A program which generates a copy of its source text as its complete output. Devising the shortest possible quine in some given programming language is a common hackish amusement. Here is one classic quine

    ((lambda (x) (list x (list (quote quote) x))) (quote (lambda (x) (list x (list (quote quote) x)))))

    This one works in LISP or Scheme. It's relatively easy to write quines in other languages such as Postscript which readily handle programs as data; much harder (and thus more challenging!) in languages like C which do not. Here is a classic C quine

    char*f="char*f=%c%s%c;main()printf(f,34,f,34,10);%c"; main()printf(f,34,f,34,10);

    For excruciatingly exact quinishness, remove the line break after the second semicolon. Some infamous Obfuscated C Contest entries have been quines that reproduced in exotic ways.