Quine (computing)

In general, the method used to create a quine in any programming language is to have, within the program, two pieces: (a) code used to do the actual printing and (b) data that represents the textual form of the code. The code functions by using the data to print the code (which makes sense since the data represents the textual form of the code), but it also uses the data, processed in a simple way, to print the textual representation of the data itself.

Here are three small examples in Python3:

a='a=%s%s%s;print(a%%(chr(39),a,chr(39)))';print(a%(chr(39),a,chr(39)))
b='b={}{}{};print(b.format(chr(39),b,chr(39)))';print(b.format(chr(39),b,chr(39)))
c='c=%r;print(c%%c)';print(c%c)
#note that %r will quote automatically

In Python 3.8:

exec(s:='print("exec(s:=%r)"%s)')

The following Java code demonstrates the basic structure of a quine.

public class Quine
{
  public static void main(String[] args)
  {
    char q = 34;      // Quotation mark character
    String[] l = {    // Array of source code
    "public class Quine",
    "{",
    "  public static void main(String[] args)",
    "  {",
    "    char q = 34;      // Quotation mark character",
    "    String[] l = {    // Array of source code",
    "    ",
    "    };",
    "    for(int i = 0; i < 6; i++)           // Print opening code",
    "        System.out.println(l[i]);",
    "    for(int i = 0; i < l.length; i++)    // Print string array",
    "        System.out.println(l[6] + q + l[i] + q + ',');",
    "    for(int i = 7; i < l.length; i++)    // Print this code",
    "        System.out.println(l[i]);",
    "  }",
    "}",
    };
    for(int i = 0; i < 6; i++)           // Print opening code
        System.out.println(l[i]);
    for(int i = 0; i < l.length; i++)    // Print string array
        System.out.println(l[6] + q + l[i] + q + ',');
    for(int i = 7; i < l.length; i++)    // Print this code
        System.out.println(l[i]);
  }
}

The source code contains a string array of itself, which is output twice, once inside quotation marks.

This code was adapted from an original post from c2.com, where the author, Jason Wilson, posted it as a minimalistic version of a Quine, without Java comments.[2]

Thanks to new text blocks feature in Java 15 (or newer), a more readable and simpler version is possible:[3]

public class Quine {
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		String textBlockQuotes = new String(new char[]{'"', '"', '"'});
		char newLine = 10;
	    String source = """
public class Quine {
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		String textBlockQuotes = new String(new char[]{'"', '"', '"'});
		char newLine = 10;
		String source = %s;
		System.out.println(source.formatted(textBlockQuotes + newLine + source + textBlockQuotes));
	}
}
""";
        System.out.println(source.formatted(textBlockQuotes + newLine + source + textBlockQuotes));
	}
}

Some programming languages have the ability to evaluate a string as a program. Quines can take advantage of this feature. For example, this Ruby quine:

eval s="print 'eval s=';p s"

In many functional languages, including Scheme and other Lisps, and interactive languages such as APL, numbers are self-evaluating. In TI-BASIC, if the last line of a program is value returning, the returned value is displayed on the screen. Therefore, in such languages a program containing a single digit results in a 1-byte quine. Since such code does not construct itself, this is often considered cheating.

1

In some languages, particularly scripting languages but also C, an empty source file is a fixed point of the language, being a valid program that produces no output.[lower-alpha 1] Such an empty program, submitted as "the world's smallest self reproducing program", once won the "worst abuse of the rules" prize in the International Obfuscated C Code Contest.[4] The program was not actually compiled, but used cp to copy the file into another file, which could be executed to print nothing.[5]

Other questionable techniques include making use of compiler messages; for example, in the GW-BASIC environment, entering "Syntax Error" will cause the interpreter to respond with "Syntax Error".

Quines, per definition, cannot receive any form of input, including reading a file, which means a quine is considered to be "cheating" if it looks at its own source code. The following shell script is not a quine:

#!/bin/sh
# Invalid quine.
# Reading the executed file from disk is cheating.
cat $0

This Java program outputs the source for a C++ program that outputs the original Java code.

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
    char q = 34;
    string l[] = {
    "    ",
    "=============<<<<<<<< C++ Code >>>>>>>>=============",
    "#include <iostream>",
    "#include <string>",
    "using namespace std;",
    "",
    "int main(int argc, char* argv[])",
    "{",
    "    char q = 34;",
    "    string l[] = {",
    "    };",
    "    for(int i = 20; i <= 25; i++)",
    "        cout << l[i] << endl;",
    "    for(int i = 0; i <= 34; i++)",
    "        cout << l[0] + q + l[i] + q + ',' << endl;",
    "    for(int i = 26; i <= 34; i++)",
    "        cout << l[i] << endl;",
    "    return 0;",
    "}",
    "=============<<<<<<<< Java Code >>>>>>>>=============",
    "public class Quine",
    "{",
    "  public static void main(String[] args)",
    "  {",
    "    char q = 34;",
    "    String[] l = {",
    "    };",
    "    for(int i = 2; i <= 9; i++)",
    "        System.out.println( l[i] );",
    "    for(int i = 0; i < l.length; i++)",
    "        System.out.println(l[0] + q + l[i] + q + ',');",
    "    for(int i = 10; i <= 18; i++)",
    "        System.out.println(l[i]);",
    "  }",
    "}",
    };
    for(int i = 20; i <= 25; i++)
        cout << l[i] << endl;
    for(int i = 0; i <= 34; i++)
        cout << l[0] + q + l[i] + q + ',' << endl;
    for(int i = 26; i <= 34; i++)
        cout << l[i] << endl;
    return 0;
}

public class Quine
{
  public static void main(String[] args)
  {
    char q = 34;
    String[] l = {
    "    ",
    "=============<<<<<<<< C++ Code >>>>>>>>=============",
    "#include <iostream>",
    "#include <string>",
    "using namespace std;",
    "",
    "int main(int argc, char* argv[])",
    "{",
    "    char q = 34;",
    "    string l[] = {",
    "    };",
    "    for(int i = 20; i <= 25; i++)",
    "        cout << l[i] << endl;",
    "    for(int i = 0; i <= 34; i++)",
    "        cout << l[0] + q + l[i] + q + ',' << endl;",
    "    for(int i = 26; i <= 34; i++)",
    "        cout << l[i] << endl;",
    "    return 0;",
    "}",
    "=============<<<<<<<< Java Code >>>>>>>>==========",
    "public class Quine",
    "{",
    "  public static void main( String[] args )",
    "  {",
    "    char q = 34;",
    "    String[] l = {",
    "    };",
    "    for(int i = 2; i <= 9; i++)",
    "        System.out.println(l[i]);",
    "    for(int i = 0; i < l.length; i++)",
    "        System.out.println( l[0] + q + l[i] + q + ',' );",
    "    for(int i = 10; i <= 18; i++))",
    "        System.out.println(l[i]);",
    "  }",
    "}",
    };
    for(int i = 2; i <= 9; i++)
        System.out.println(l[i]);
    for(int i = 0; i < l.length; i++)
        System.out.println( l[0] + q + l[i] + q + ',' );
    for(int i = 10; i <= 18; i++)
        System.out.println(l[i]);

 }
}

Such programs have been produced with various cycle lengths:

• Haskell → Python → Ruby[6]
• Python → Bash → Perl[7]
• C → Haskell → Python → Perl[8]
• Haskell → Perl → Python → Ruby → C → Java[9]
• Ruby → Java → C# → Python[10]
• C → C++ → Ruby → Python → PHP → Perl[11]
• Ruby → Python → Perl → Lua → OCaml → Haskell → C → Java → Brainfuck → Whitespace → Unlambda[12]
• Ruby → Scala → Scheme → Scilab → Shell (bash) → S-Lang → Smalltalk → Squirrel3 → Standard ML → ... → Rexx (128 (and formerly 50) programming languages)[13]
• Web application → C (web application source code consists of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS)[14]