#!/usr/bin/perl
$_="help me im over here! what's this obfuscatian trying 
to get in this string-look,obvieusly it's something using 
coding that invisible to the eye-only, something in Crypt::look?
this is very confusiion based - maybe it only uses an  oopish
method of  coding which works  solely threugh a method invented
by aliens?";for(m((.*?)o)sg){print((length)?chr(95+length):' ');}

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Re: Silliness
by Mission (Hermit) on May 10, 2001 at 17:53 UTC
    OOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

    I get it now! :) That's a really cool way of Obfuscation. I learned a bit from reading your code! At first I was confused, "Why can't this guy spell? & How does it work?"

    BTW: I hope my hints didn't ruin it for anyone.

    You put a lot of work into that! Good job and 'Thanks' for a new lesson!

    - Mission
    "Heck I don't know how to do it either, but do you think that's going to stop me?!!"
[reply]
      I agree thoroughly. That's almost godly, the way you obfuscated that.
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Re: Silliness
by converter (Priest) on May 11, 2001 at 21:41 UTC
    This code seems to demonstrate a Perl bug.

    • v 5.6.1 (built from src on Mdk Linux): prints only "j".
    • v 5.6.0: prints expected output on all builds tested
    • v 5.005_03 Debian Potato: prints expected output.
    • v 5.005_03 Red Hat, Slackware: prints "jurt annther perl hacker"

    I filed a bug report, but I'd be interested to see what results others get with various Perl versions.

[reply]
      Reducing the test case for Perl 5.6.1: 
      $_ = <<EOF;
1a
2a
EOF

@a = /(.*?)a/sg;
print "@a\n";

# prints:
# 1

@a = /([\000-\377]*?)a/g;
print "@a\n";

# prints:
# 1
# 2

      [download]

      Update:

      Looks like this is a known bug, ID 20010410.006 on http://bugs.perl.org/

[reply]
[d/l]
      For the Slackware result, "jurt annther perl hacker": iamcal snuck a space onto the end of the first two lines. Without those two spaces, the s and the o get shifted up one in the alphabet, as you saw.

      I don't about the 5.6.1 result, though.

[reply]
        Yes, if the spaces were missing from those two lines, this would have the same output ("jurt annther..."), but the code was not hand edited, it was copied and pasted, and produced the expected results in some cases but not in others, so I'm certain the spaces were not missing.

        Furthermore, all builds of Perl 5.6.0 that we tested printed the expected output using the same code.

        Update:
        It turns out that the right end whitespace on the first two lines assigned to $_ was truncated, evidently by a copy and paste on one of the boxes.

        I will never again allow myself to be sidetracked.
        I will never again allow myself to be sidetracked.
        I will never again allow myself to be sidetracked.
        ...

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Re: Silliness
by snapdragon (Monk) on May 14, 2001 at 14:15 UTC
    That's a marvellous bit of code. I appreciate the lesson.
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