http://qs1969.pair.com?node_id=253150

I will be the first to admit that the vast majority of (at least my) JAPHs are not truly obfuscated -- just more or less clever hacks.

I've learned about hashes of arrays, hex, octal, binary, substr, sprintf, __DATA__, etc. vis a vis perl using JAPHs -- I suspect that quite a few aspirants of perl knowledge do the same.

Since there's no special place to put JAPHs, they generally show up in Obfuscation. The line blurs, but a JAPH is a JAPH and an obfu is an obfu.

While BooK's post is much more eloquent, and the topic has lain dormant for the past two years, again I humbly beseech the powers that be for the establishment of a JAPH section.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
•Re: On JAPHs Redux
by merlyn (Sage) on Apr 25, 2003 at 14:12 UTC
    As the inventor of the JAPH (and some would say "JAPH #0"), I would have to put JAPHs firmly inside the set of all ObfuPerls. It meets all the requirements of ObfuPerl (using unusual features, using features unusually, messing with spacing and alternate delimiters, etc.), and the additional requirements that it print a signature line (canonical JAPHs printing my now-famous 25 character string "Just another Perl hacker," including the comma). I don't see anything about JAPHs that would make them not ObfuPerl, unless you're talking about the most trivial versions.

    -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
    Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.

[reply]

      I concur that JAPHs meet all the requirements of ObfuPerl, but I submit that they are an important subset thereof -- significant enough to warrant their own section.

[reply]
        No, they're not an important subset significant enough to warrant their own section.

        MJD says you can't just make shit up and expect the computer to know what you mean, retardo!
        I run a Win32 PPM repository for perl 5.6x+5.8x. I take requests.
        ** The Third rule of perl club is a statement of fact: pod is sexy.

[reply]
Re: On JAPHs Redux
by Mr. Muskrat (Canon) on Apr 25, 2003 at 13:21 UTC

    Thank you for pointing a node that I have never seen or heard mention of before today!

    The table that follows is a direct quote from the good BooK's post:
    JAPHObfuscation
    • prints "Just Another Perl Hacker"
    • discovery of features
    • less used features used in unusual ways
    • TIMTOWTDI
    • does something useful/funnny/powerful
    • hard to understand/read programs
    • an artistic approach to the code
    • should confuse B::Deparse

    So it seems to me that if a JAPH is not obfuscated that it should be posted in Cool Uses For Perl or the Snippets Section.

[reply]

      I've not played with enough Obfu to see what techniques will "confuse" B::Deparse. It would seem that the bytecodes are the bytecodes. The output may be mechanical, but where will B::Deparse not be able to produce Perl from bytecode?

      --
      [ e d @ h a l l e y . c c ]

[reply]

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