Shortest programs to make PCC core dump and to make it loop

Donn Seeley donn at utah-cs.UUCP
Sun Sep 2 13:12:32 AEST 1984


Let's make this a contest.  There are several categories (e.g. 4.2 BSD
VAX, S5 VAX, 4.2 BSD Sun, etc.).  The winner in each category gets a
hex core dump listing...  The competitions are to find the shortest
core dumper and shortest looper ('expression causes compiler loop').
Chris Torek and I have already come up with some tough programs to beat
(7-byte core dumper and 5-byte looper in the 4.2 BSD VAX category).
Mail entries to me and I'll summarize when the dust clears.

More ideas for good competitions are welcome.  Some competitions are
trivial, so be careful what you suggest.  For example there is a 1-byte
program which is an unrecoverable error ('goodbye!') on a VAX with 4.2
BSD.  One fun competition might be to find the shortest program with
too many errors ('compiler error: too many errors')...  Any other good
ones?

When the competition is over I'll solicit bug fixes for the problems,
then we can begin again with fixed compilers...

Donn Seeley    University of Utah CS Dept    donn at utah-cs.arpa
40 46' 6"N 111 50' 34"W    (801) 581-5668    decvax!utah-cs!donn



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