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Re: Re: find-a-func

by Masem (Monsignor)
on Aug 29, 2001 at 18:44 UTC ( [id://108769]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to Re: find-a-func
in thread find-a-func

One of the things that I initially thought when I saw this obfu was that the llama copyright warning in the __DATA__ section was a significant part of the obfu; however, as Grinder's dissection above shows, it's just there.

Not to belittle Erudil's work, but I think an interesting take off of this would be to add just enough words to make the copyright notice into a pangram (a sentence containing every letter of the alphabet), and then modify:

$~ = (('a'..'z'))[rand 26];
into something that randomly picks a letter from this new __DATA__ section. The end effect would be about the same, except that now the distribution of random letters would closely mimic the english distribution ('eaton...') roughtly.

Of course, that would completely require Erudil to re-plot out the llama, since this change would probably add from 5 to 15 characters, and may not be possible to keep the code shape.

-----------------------------------------------------
Dr. Michael K. Neylon - mneylon-pm@masemware.com || "You've left the lens cap of your mind on again, Pinky" - The Brain
It's not what you know, but knowing how to find it if you don't know that's important

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Re3: find-a-func
by Hofmator (Curate) on Aug 29, 2001 at 19:18 UTC

    A very nice additional idea, Masem. I wouldn't change the copyright statement in any way, though. Just pick a random character from it, it is an English sentence at the moment so it already matches the distribution of letters (or at least as roughly as anything else) and the main point is just to get a random letter ... I don't think it's a problem if you never get an x.

    Although the '&' might look a bit strange as a letter. And I don't think you can get that out of the copyright ;-)

    Update: Added the '&' remark.

    -- Hofmator

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