14th International Obfuscated C Code Contest Rules | Copyright (c) Leonid A. Broukhis, Jeremy Horn, Landon Curt Noll and | Peter Seebach, 1998. | All Rights Reserved. Permission for personal, education or non-profit use is | granted provided this this copyright and notice are included in its entirety | and remains unaltered. All other uses must receive prior permission in | writing from the contest judges. | Obfuscate: tr.v. -cated, -cating, -cates. 1. a. To render obscure. b. To darken. 2. To confuse: his emotions obfuscated his judgment. [LLat. obfuscare, to darken : ob(intensive) + Lat. fuscare, to darken < fuscus, dark.] -obfuscation n. obfuscatory adj. GOALS OF THE CONTEST: * To write the most Obscure/Obfuscated C program under the rules below. * To show the importance of programming style, in an ironic way. * To stress C compilers with unusual code. * To illustrate some of the subtleties of the C language. * To provide a safe forum for poor C code. :-) The 14th IOCCC contest window is: | 26-Nov-98 12:00 UTC to 31-Jan-99 23:59:59 UTC | NOTE: Some of the changes from the 1998 rules are denoted by change bars. ---> | However some changes such as 1996 to 1998 are not marked. | RULES: To help us with the volume of entries, we ask that you follow these rules: 1) Your entry must be a complete program. 2) Your entry must be <= 3217 bytes in length. The number of characters excluding whitespace (tab, space, newline), and excluding any ; { or } immediately followed by whitespace or end of file, must be <= 1536. 3) Your entry must be submitted in the following format: ---entry--- rule: 1998 fix: y or n (n => this is a new entry, y => this replaces an older entry) title: title of entry (see comments below) entry: Entry number from 0 to 7 inclusive (your 1st entry should by 0) date: Date/time of submission in UTC (see comments below) host: Machine(s) and OS(s) under which your entry was tested Use tab indented lines if needed ---remark--- Place remarks about this entry in this section. It would be helpful if you were to indent your remarks with 4 spaces, though it is not a requirement. Also, if possible, try to avoid going beyond the 79th column. Blank lines are permitted. ---author--- name: your name org: School/Company/Organization addr: postal address use tab indented lines to continue don't forget to include the country email: EMail address from a well known site or registered domain. If you give several forms, list them on separate tab indented lines. url: http://your/home/page.html or say none if you don't have one anon: y or n (y => remain anonymous, n => OK to publish this info) ---info--- If your program needs an info file, place a uuencoded copy of it in this section. In the case of multiple info files, use multiple info sections. If your entry does not need a info file, skip this section. ---build--- Place a uuencoded copy of the command(s) used to compile/build your program in this section. It must uudecode into a file named 'build'. The resulting file must be 255 bytes or less. ---program--- Place a uuencoded copy of your program in this section. It must uudecode into a file named is 'prog.c'. The resulting file must follow rule #2. ---end--- Regarding the above format: * The title must match the expression: | ^[a-zA-Z0-9_=][a-zA-Z0-9_=+-]*$ | and must be 1 to 31 characters in length. | It is suggested, but not required, that the title should incorporate the author(s) username(s). * The date in the ---entry--- section should be given with respect to UTC. The format of the date should be as returned by asctime() using the C locale. (see guidelines for more info) * You may correct/revise a previously submitted entry by sending it to the contest email address. Be sure to set 'fix' in the ---entry--- section to 'y'. The corrected entry must use the same title and entry number as submission that is being corrected. Be sure that you note the re-submission in the ---remark--- as well. * With the exception of the header, all text outside of the above format may be ignored by the judges. If you need to tell the judges something, put it in the ---remark--- section, or send a separate EMail message to the judges. * Information from the ---author--- section will be published unless 'y' was given to the respective author's 'anon' line. * To credit multiple authors, include an ---author--- section for each author. Each should start with ---author--- line, and should be found between the ---entry--- and ---build--- sections. * The home page URL in the ---author--- section must be fully | qualified or must be the word `none'. | * The entry's remarks should include: - note if this entry is a re-submission of a previous entry. - what this program does - how to run the program (sample args or input) - special compile or execution instructions, if any - special filename requirements (see rule 4 and 5) - information about any ---info--- files - why you think the program is obfuscated - any other remarks (humorous or otherwise) * Do not rot13 your entry's remarks. You may suggest that certain portions of your remarks be rot13ed if your entry wins an award. * Info files should be used only to supplement your entry. They should not be required to exist. * If your entry does not need an info file, skip the ---info--- section. If your entry needs multiple info files, use multiple ---info--- sections, one per info file. You should describe each info file in the ---remark--- section. * Your sections must in the same order as in the above template. 4) If your entry is selected as a winner, it will be modified as follows: 'build' is incorporated into a makefile, and 'build' is removed 'prog.c' is renamed to your entry's title, followed by an optional digit, followed by '.c' your entry is compiled into a file with the name of your entry's title, possibly followed by a digit If your entry requires that a build file exist, state so in your entry's remark section. The makefile will be arranged to execute a build shell script containing the 'build' information. The name of this build shell script will be your entry's title, possibly followed by a digit, followed by '.sh'. If needed, your entry's remarks should indicate how your entry must be changed in order to deal with the new filenames. 5) The build file, the source and the resulting executable should be treated as read-only files. If your entry needs to modify these files, it should make and modify a copy of the appropriate file. If this occurs, state so in your entry's remarks. 6) The uudecoded ---program--- section must be able to be compiled cleanly by an ANSI C compiler, or if there are any compile errors, they must be documented in the ---remark--- section. 7) The program must be of original work. All programs must be in the public domain. All copyrighted programs will be rejected. 8) Entries must be received prior to 31-Jan-99 23:59:59 UTC. (UTC is | essentially equivalent to Greenwich Mean Time) EMail your entries to: entry@ioccc.org | You must include the words ``ioccc entry'' in the subject of your EMail when sending in your entry! Failure to do so may result in the loss of your entry! If possible, we request that you hold off on EMailing your entries until 26-Nov-98 12:00 UTC. Early entries will be accepted, however. | We will attempt to EMail a confirmation to the sender of any entry received after 26-Nov-98 12:00 UTC and before the close of the contest. | 9) Each person may submit up to 8 entries per contest year. Each entry must be sent in a separate EMail letter. 10) Entries requiring human interaction to be built are not allowed. 11) Programs that require special privileges (setuid, setgid, super-user, special owner or group) are not allowed. 12) Legal abuse of the rules is somewhat encouraged. An entry that, in the opinion of the judges, violates the rules will be disqualified. Entries that attempt to abuse the rules must try to justify why their rule abuse is legal in the ---remark--- section. FOR MORE INFORMATION: The judging will be done by Leonid A. Broukhis, Jeremy Horn, Landon Curt Noll and Peter Seebach. Please send questions or comments about the contest, to: questions@ioccc.org (not the address for submitting entries) | Comments about confusing rules and guidelines are also welcome. The rules and the guidelines may (and often do) change from year to year. You should be sure you have the current rules and guidelines prior to submitting entries. To obtain them, visit the IOCCC web page: | http://www.ioccc.org | It has rules, guidelines and winners of previous contests (1984 to date).