boojeboy has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Ok so I ran across this code in a job listing for Fonality: 
#!/usr/bin/perl
s;
(?:SEEKING)?;
PERLqny~%|fsyx%~tz&;
?$^X=~m.\w+$.:DEVELOPERS;
s"$&"Ktsf"i;
s^.^chr ord($&)-5^eg;
$\=$/;print||" ;) "

[download]
Output: Fona If you add 'use strict;' it won't run... How can I begin to untangle this code?

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Re: Obfusicated code
by kyle (Abbot) on Dec 15, 2007 at 20:32 UTC
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Re: Obfusicated code
by poolpi (Hermit) on Dec 15, 2007 at 21:56 UTC
    In a first time you can simplify the obfuscated code like this : 
    s//Ktsf/; # now $_ = 'Ktsf'
s/./chr ord($&)-5/e; # $_ = 'Fona'

$\=$/;
# By default $/ is a newline
# A newline is printed after the last print

print
# print $_ and a newline => "Fona\n"

    [download]
    Second time :
    use strict;
print map { chr ord($_) - 5 }  ('K', 't', 's', 'f');
print "\n";

    [download]
    Finaly :
    'K' ASCII code = 75
    'F' ASCII code = 70
    chr 70 eq 'F';)

    HTH,
    PooLPi
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Re: Obfusicated code
by Anonymous Monk on Dec 15, 2007 at 22:25 UTC 
    
$ perl -le'
print "1: $_";
s/(?:SEEKING)?/PERLqny~%|fsyx%~tz&/ ? $^X =~ /\w+$/ : DEVELOPERS;
print "2: $_"; 
print "3: $&";
s/$&/Ktsf/i;
print "4: $_";             
s/./ chr ord( $& ) - 5 /eg;
print "5: $_";
$\ = $/;
print || " ;) "
'
1: 
2: PERLqny~%|fsyx%~tz&
3: perl
4: Ktsfqny~%|fsyx%~tz&
5: Fonality wants you!
Fonality wants you!

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