I've recently been handed a project that involves fixing some of the most bletcherous code I've seen thus far in my career, apparently written by a professional perl programmer. Here are some examples, posted for you're amusement ;-) 

$content_dem = "$content_dem"."DEM"."\t"."1"."\t"."1"."\n";

[download]
#Remove commas
$content =~ s!, "?!!gis;
@array = split(/"/, $content);

[download]
if (system("/bin/cp $temp_cur $final_file")) {
    printf("Error - file '$final_file' not updated.\n");
    exit(-1);
}

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select STDOUT;
$| = 1;
open SAVEOUT, ">&STDOUT";
close STDOUT;
open STDOUT, ">&SAVEOUT";

[download]

Suffice it to say, I would much rather re-write all of this from scratch than have to live with the thought that anyone else would ever have to try and hack / decipher them. Or end up having to work on them again in a couple of months time.

However, it did get me thinking, what's the worst / most bizarre / inexplicable code my fellow monks have come across over the years? I'm sure I'm probably just scraping the tip of the iceberg here (though, having said that, I must confess that the intention of the writer of the last chunk of code is a mystery to me).

In reply to The inheritance of Cruft by kilinrax

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