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From: Ben Bacarisse <ben@bsb.me.uk>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Writing own source disk
Date: Tue, 04 Jun 2024 14:40:24 +0100
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Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> writes:

> On 03/06/2024 13:11, Ben Bacarisse wrote:
>> Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> writes:
>> 
>>> On 02/06/2024 23:17, Ben Bacarisse wrote:
>>>> Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>>> Writing a prgram which writes its own source to standard output is a
>>>>> standard programming problem. It's called a quine.
>>>> A quine must also not process any input.
>>>>
>>>>> And I have achieved a
>>>>> quine. But a serious quine. Not contrived special purpose code, but serious
>>>>> codde which can be used to package up source for real.
>>>> You XML-producing program may be very useful, but it's not really a
>>>> quine, serious or otherwise.
>>>>
>>>>> And it's completely
>>>>> portable ANSI C. So of course it can't write output to disk - that is
>>>>> impossible to achive portably. Instead it writes its own source to standard
>>>>> output using a simle XML format called FileSystem, which represents the
>>>>> source tree.
>>>> That sounds as if the program reads input (but it's not explicitly
>>>> stated) as well as not producing the program text but some XML
>>>> representation of the program text.  That would make it not a quine for
>>>> two reasons.
>>>> How do you process a source tree in completely portable ANSI C?
>> 
>>> The FileSystem XML fie is embedded with the program. It is a genuine
>>> quine. Compile it and see.
>> No need; I'll take your word for it.
>> 
>>> It's also a very superior quine, and it spits out images and binaries.
>> If it's a quine (and I don't doubt you) then is spits out its own source
>> code.  That can, of course, include source code encodings of images.
>> I'm not sure why you consider that superior, but that is, after all, a
>> rather subjective assessment.
>> 
> It's not therortically interesting from a computer science perspective.
> You can encode images as source.
>
> But from a practical point of view, yes my quine is  massively
> powerful. Most graphical programs do have images as source. And they just
> get zipped up into the FileSystem XML file. So any binary data can be
> included. Easily, Using exactly the same system.

I'm not getting it.  Why do I want a quine in connection to a graphical
program?  I want a way to include everything in the distribution, but
we've had that for ages.  Why is having a program that outputs something
you already have (by defintion!) of any use?

-- 
Ben.