Just another Perl hacker

Just another Perl hacker, or JAPH, typically refers to a Perl program which prints "Just another Perl hacker," (the comma is canonical but is occasionally omitted). Short JAPH programs are often used as signatures in online forums, or as T-shirt designs. The phrase or acronym is also occasionally used (without code) for a signature.

JAPH programs are classically done using extremely obfuscated methods, in the spirit of the Obfuscated C Contest. More recently, as the phenomenon has become so well known, the phrase is sometimes used in ordinary examples (without obfuscation).Even more recently the P of JAPH can also stand for Perl 6, Parrot or Pugs.

The idea of using tiny Perl programs which print a signature "as a signature" was originated by Randal L. Schwartz, in his postings to the newsgroup comp.lang.perl. [Randal L. Schwartz in Usenet message [e-mail] explaining the origin of JAPH. Available through google: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.perl.misc/msg/ecc405feeefc120c] (In fact, many of the JAPHs below are his.)

Examples

JAPH program without obfuscation:

print "Just another Perl hacker, ";

Embedding JAPH in opaque code:

$_='987;s/^(d+)/$1-1/e;$1?eval:print"Just another Perl hacker,"';eval;

Decoding JAPH from a transposed string literal:

$_="krJhruaesrltre c a cnP,ohet";$_.=$1,print$2while s/(..)(.)//;

Appearing as if it does something completely unrelated to printing JAPH:

$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgc";tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print;

Forking processes to print out one letter each in the correct order [http://perl.plover.com/obfuscated/] :@P=split//,".URRUUc8R";@d=split//," rekcah xinU / lreP rehtona tsuJ";sub p{@p{"r$p","u$p"}=(P,P);pipe"r$p","u$p";++$p;($q*=2)+=$f=!fork;map{$P=$P [$f^ord($p{$_})&6] ;$p{$_}=/ ^$P/ix?$P:close$_}keys%p}p;p;p;p;p;map{$p{$_}=~/^ [P.] /&&close$_}%p;wait until$?;map{/^r/&&<$_>}%p;$_=$d [$q] ;sleep rand(2)if/S/;print

Using only Perl keywords (no literals or punctuation):

not exp log srand xor s qq qx xors x x length uc ord and print chrord for qw q join use sub tied qxxor eval xor print qq q q xor inteval lc q m cos and print chr ordfor qw y abs ne open tied hex expref y m xor scalar srand print qqq q xor int eval lc qq y sqrt cosand print chr ord for qw x printfeach return local x y or print qqs s and eval q s undef or oct xortime xor ref print chr int ord lcforeach qw y hex alarm chdir killexec return y s gt sin sort split

Taken from [http://perlmonks.org/?node_id=290607 perlmonks.org]

Using only punctuation (no alphanumeric characters): (Written by [http://search.cpan.org/~roode/ Eric Roode] )

`$=`;$_=%!;($_)=/(.)/;$=++$|;($.,$/,$,,$,$",$;,$^,$#,$~,$*,$:,@%)=($!=~/(.)(.).(.)(.)(.)(.)..(.)(.)(.)..(.)......(.)/,$"),$=++;$.++;$.++;$_++;$_++;($_,$,$,)=($~.$"."$;$/$% [$?] $_$$,$:$% [$?] ",$"&$~,$#,);$,++;$,++;$^|=$";`$_$$,$/$:$;$~$*$% [$?] $.$~$*${#}$% [$?] $;$$"$^$~$*.>&$=`

(Attribution is missing.) The above JAPH works only on Unix and Unix-like systems.

Ascii-art (to make this one work, be sure to set the console size to at least 120x50): # sub j($){($ P,$V)= @_;while($$P=~s:^ ( [()] )::x){ $V+=('('eq$1)?-32:31 }$V+=ord( substr( $$P,0,1,""))-74} sub a{ my($I,$K,$ J,$L)=@_ ;$I=int($I*$M/$Z);$K=int( $K*$M/$Z);$J=int($J*$M /$Z);$L=int($L*$M/$Z); $G=$ J-$I;$F=$L-$K;$E=(abs($ G)>=abs($F))?$G:$F;($E<0) and($ I,$K)=($J,$L);$E||=.01 ;for($i=0;$i<=abs$E;$i++ ){ $D->{$K +int($i*$F/$E) }->{$I+int($i*$G/$E)}=1sub p{$D={};$ Z=$z||.01;map{ $H=$_;$I=$N=j$H;$K=$O=j$H;while($H){$q=ord substr($H,0,1,"" );if(42=$q){$J=j$H;$L=j$H}else{$q-=43;$L =$q %9;$J=($q-$L)/9;$L=$q-9*$J-4;$J-=4}$J+=$I;$L+=$K;a($I,$K,$J,$ L); ($I,$K)=($J,$L)}a($I,$K,$N,$O)}@_;my$T;map{$y=$_;map{ $T.=$D->{$y} ->{$_}?$:' '}(-59..59);$T.=" "}(-23..23);print"e [H$T"}$w= eval{ require Win32::Console::ANSI};$b=$w?'1;7;':"";($j,$u,$s,$t,$a,$n,$o ,$h,$c,$k,$p,$e,$r,$l,$C)=split/}/,'Tw*JSK8IAg*PJ [*J@wR}*JR] *QJ [*J'. 'BA*JQK8I*JC}KUz] BAIJT] *QJ [R?-R [e] RI'.'}Tn*JQ] wRAI*JDnR8QAU}wT8KT'. '] n*JEI*EJR*QJ] *JR*DJ@IQ [}*JSe*JD [n] *JPe*'.'JBI/KI}T8@?PcdnfgVCBRcP'. '?ABKV] }*JWe*JD [n] *JPe*JC?8B*JE};Vq*OJQ/IP ['.'wQ}*JWeOe{n*EERk8;'. 'J*JC}/U*OJd [OI@*BJ*JXn*J>w] U}CWq*OJc8KJ?O [e] U/T*QJP?}*JSe*JCnTe'. 'QIAKJR}*JV] wRAI*J?}T] *RJcJI [] 3;U] Uq*PM [wV] W] WCT*DM*SJ'. 'ZP [Z'. 'PZa [] UKVgogK9K*QJ [] n [RI@*EH@IddR [Q [] T] T] T3o [dk*JE'. ' [ZU'. '{T] *JPKTKK] *OJ [QIO [PIQIO [gUKUk*JE+J+J5R5AI*EJ00'. 'BCB*'. 'DMKKJIR [Q+*EJ0*EK';sub h{$ = qw(% & @ x) [int rand 4] ;map{printf "e [$b;%dm",int(rand 6)+101-60* ($w
|0);system( "cls")if$w ;($A,$S)= ($_ [1] , $ _ [0] );($M, @,)= split '}';for( $z=256 ;$z>0; $z -=$S){$S*= $A;p @,} sleep$_ [2] ;while ($_ [3] &&($ z+=$ S) <=256){ p@,("". "32}7D$j" ."}AG". "$u}OG" ."$s}WG" ."$t","" ."24}(" ."IJ$a" ."}1G$n" ."}CO$o" ."}GG$t" ."}QC" ."$h}" ."^G$e" ."})IG" ."$r", "32}?" ."H$p}FG$e}QG$r". "}ZC" ."$l", "28}(LC" ."" ."". "$h}:" ."J$a}EG". "$c" ."}M" ."C$k}ZG". "$e" ."}" ."dG$r","18" ."}(" ."D;" ."$C" )}{h(16 ,1,1,0 );h(8, .98,0,0 );h(16 ,1,1,1) ;h(8.0 ,0.98,0, 1); redo}### #written 060204 by #liverpole @@@@@@@ #@@@@@@@@@@@

ee also

*Hello world program
*Obfuscated Perl contest
*Perl golf

References

External links

* [http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-japh.html Cultured Perl: The Elegance of JAPH]
* [http://www.cpan.org/misc/japh http://www.cpan.org/misc/japh] A collection of JAPHs at CPAN.