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This is a perl script that outputs a very small, hand-crafted GIF. This was written byte-by-byte, and is as small as it comes. Total size: 35 bytes (43 bytes if transparent). More notes in the code and below it.

{
## tinygif
## World's Smallest Gif
## 35 bytes, 43 if transparent

use strict;
my($RED,$GREEN,$BLUE,$GHOST,$CGI);

## Adjust the colors here, from 0-255
$RED   = 255;
$GREEN = 0;
$BLUE  = 0;

## Set $GHOST to 1 for a transparent gif, 0 for normal
$GHOST = 0;

## Set $CGI to 1 if writing to a web browser, 0 if not
$CGI = 0;

$CGI && printf "Content-Length: %d\nContent-Type: image/gif\n\n", 
  $GHOST?43:35;
printf "GIF89a\1\0\1\0%c\0\0%c%c%c\0\0\0%s,\0\0\0\0\1\0\1\0\0%c%c%c\1\
+0;",
  144,$RED,$GREEN,$BLUE,$GHOST?pack("c8",33,249,4,5,16,0,0,0):"",2,2,4
+;
}
[download]

That's it! Some notes:

Use it in your cgi script or just output the results to a file to create the GIF: perl tinygif > tinyred.gif
If transparent, it does not matter what the colors are set to.
This makes a 1 pixel by 1 pixel GIF, which is more useful than it might first appear. Just change the size of it with HTML tags to make some pretty rectangles (great for polls!) i.e.:
<IMG SRC="tinyred.gif" HEIGHT="100" WIDTH="400">
I lied - it can be made *slightly* smaller, but then it breaks the GIF specification, although I have not found a browser yet that has a problem with my 'illegal' one. This one is totally legal.
To be really precise, this is the smallest possible GIF that displays an image. Don't ask. :)

In reply to World's Smallest Gif by turnstep

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