Portable Self-Replicating C Contest

[Bob Hearn]

>From article <1417 at sw1e.UUCP>, by uucibg at sw1e.UUCP (3929]):
> In article <12144 at haddock.ima.isc.com> karl at haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer) writes:
>>Well, it happens that I was going to post this anyway...
>>
>>*** Portable Self-Replicating C Contest ***
>>
>>Rules:
>>0.  The output of the program must be its own source code.
> 
>           [ More of the rules of the contest ]
> 
>>Followups to comp.std.c only.
>>
>>Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl at haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint
>>(Why 72?  The last eight columns are reserved for possible addition of a card
>>sequence number at some future date.)
> 
> This is a good opportunity for me to ask a question that's been bugging me for
> quite a while:
> 
> It seems that it would be impossible to create a program which generates it's
> source as output because you have a self-referential system and will end up
> with an infinite recursion.  I guess this presumes that you can't go out to
> the operating system to do things, since then it's not a strictly self-refer-
> ential system.  I note that this contest doesn't prevent you from going to the
> operating system, it simply prevents you from opening the source file and
> printing it out (that rule was in part of the text I deleted...sorry). But:
> 
> Isn't it impossible for a C program to replicate itself if it doesn't access
> the operating system (other than printing to stdout)?  The question of whether
> it can be done while *using* the OS should come out of this contest so I'll
> wait patiently...
> 
> By the way, please forgive me if this all seems trivially true/false...but
> please enlighten me.
> 
> 
> Brian R. Gilstrap                          Southwestern Bell Telephone
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> #include <std_disclaimers.h>