Christmas Package Obfuscation

[kschwab]

#!/usr/bin/perl
$;;$^;s#^#$\
                  _-~,..___
               .-'   .--._ ```--.-----.___
            ._^---- (`-...`-. _/,----. )  ````---=.
       _.-''  ````-- `.___.-.) (---==''       .-' |
   _.-'                 _.-. )(`.-._``--.._ .'    |
  |`---..__          .-'.-'.' )| |_ ``--...`.     |
  |        ``--.._ ,'.-'   ( (  `-.`-.  .'| :     |
  |               | | --.._`. )    `. `.  | :     |
  |               | |       ( )-.._.') )  ) :     |
  |               | |       | |   | ( (   ) :     |
  |               | |       (_(   |  ) )  | :    .'
  |               | |             |   L/  | :  .'
  (__             | |             |       | :.'
     `-.._        | |             |       | :
          `-.._   | |             |       |/
               `--`_|_            |     .'
                      `._         |   .'
                         ``-.__   | .'
                               `--`;
# and "Happy Holidays" or Merry Christmas!
print "Is print broken?\n";print;# guess not?

[kschwab]

Got a note that it bombs with "syntax error .. line 23, at EOF" for some people.

Verified that I see the error when running it on an online perl compiler, here: https://rextester.com/l/perl_online_compiler.

But, it does run here: https://www.tutorialspoint.com/execute_perl_online.php.

Now I'm curious what the problem is.

Update: Added a semicolon after the last print and it seems to fix the syntax error for those versions of Perl where it was bombing out.

Also, spoiler below if interested:

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