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Any idea about constructing a higher order Quine program?

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Here is a special Haskell program which outputs a Python program that outputs a Ruby program that outputs the original Haskell program (from http://blog.sigfpe.com/2008/02/third-order-quine-in-three-languages.html)

To be more exactly, the output is of this Haskell program

q a b c=putStrLn $ b ++ [toEnum 10,'q','('] ++ show b ++ [','] ++ show c ++ [','] ++ show a ++ [')']
main=q "q a b c=putStrLn $ b ++ [toEnum 10,'q','('] ++ show b ++ [','] ++ show c ++ [','] ++ show a ++ [')']" "def q(a,b,c):print b+chr(10)+'q('+repr(b)+','+repr(c)+','+repr(a)+')'" "def e(x) return 34.chr+x+34.chr end;def q(a,b,c) print b+10.chr+'main=q '+e(b)+' '+e(c)+' '+e(a)+' '+10.chr end"

is a Python program,

$ runhaskell test.hs
def q(a,b,c):print b+chr(10)+'q('+repr(b)+','+repr(c)+','+repr(a)+')'
q("def q(a,b,c):print b+chr(10)+'q('+repr(b)+','+repr(c)+','+repr(a)+')'","def e(x) return 34.chr+x+34.chr end;def q(a,b,c) print b+10.chr+'main=q '+e(b)+' '+e(c)+' '+e(a)+' '+10.chr end","q a b c=putStrLn $ b ++ [toEnum 10,'q','('] ++ show b ++ [','] ++ show c ++ [','] ++ show a ++ [')']")

which outputs a Ruby program after running,

$ runhaskell test.hs | python
def e(x) return 34.chr+x+34.chr end;def q(a,b,c) print b+10.chr+'main=q '+e(b)+' '+e(c)+' '+e(a)+' '+10.chr end
q("def e(x) return 34.chr+x+34.chr end;def q(a,b,c) print b+10.chr+'main=q '+e(b)+' '+e(c)+' '+e(a)+' '+10.chr end","q a b c=putStrLn $ b ++ [toEnum 10,'q','('] ++ show b ++ [','] ++ show c ++ [','] ++ show a ++ [')']","def q(a,b,c):print b+chr(10)+'q('+repr(b)+','+repr(c)+','+repr(a)+')'")

and finally the Ruby program prints the original Haskell program.

$ runhaskell test.hs | python | ruby
q a b c=putStrLn $ b ++ [toEnum 10,'q','('] ++ show b ++ [','] ++ show c ++ [','] ++ show a ++ [')']
main=q "q a b c=putStrLn $ b ++ [toEnum 10,'q','('] ++ show b ++ [','] ++ show c ++ [','] ++ show a ++ [')']" "def q(a,b,c):print b+chr(10)+'q('+repr(b)+','+repr(c)+','+repr(a)+')'" "def e(x) return 34.chr+x+34.chr end;def q(a,b,c) print b+10.chr+'main=q '+e(b)+' '+e(c)+' '+e(a)+' '+10.chr end"

Since a traditional quine program can be constructed by separating a program in two parts in which partA contains a description of partB and partB computes A from the description.

But how was such a three-order quine constructed?

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ZelluX Avatar asked Aug 28 '09 15:08

ZelluX


1 Answers

First, wrap your head around this programming assignment. Believe me, it's actually not that difficult once you spend some time on it. The idea is that you can write a program that can take another program as input and spit out a third program as output that combines the two programs and also understands its own text. It's a sort of higher order quine. If you understand the structure of all three programming languages, you can take the ideas from this assignment and extend them further.

like image 102
Martin Hock Avatar answered Oct 02 '22 12:10

Martin Hock