Perl is C

[Ovid]

Not sure where to put this as it's not obfuscated, but this is my first attempt at writing a program that parses in two different languages. Specifically, this Perl program compiles as C code under Cygwin with:

    gcc hel2.c -o hel2 -Wall -ansi

I'm embarrassed by all of the cheap preprocessor instructions in there. It seems like a cop-out.

#include <stdio.h>
#ifdef _FSTDIO
#define $i i
#define sub
#define main int i; int main
sub main() {
#else
sub main();
#endif

        for ($i=0;$i<5;$i++)
        {
                printf("Just another Perl hacker,\n");
        }
        return(0);
}
#ifndef _FSTDIO
main();
#endif

Okay, not very good. Shoot me :) Since I did specify -ansi on the command line of the C compiler, I expect that this will work on any C compiler.

Cheers,
Ovid

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[tilly]

Indeed, you only need one pre-processor instruction, and can make it look like a routine C exercise while you are at it:

#include <stdio.h>        /* Just a simple finger exercise    */
#define eval int main()   /* To demonstrate the pre-processor */

eval
{
    printf("Hello world\n");
    return (0);
}

[jcwren]

You realize, of course, what you've started...

I couldn't get the 'Perl is COBOL' version to work, tho.

--Chris

e-mail jcwren

[spm]

A few really cool things are available in GCC; one is allowing dollar signs before all variable names (one down). After that, most things can be fixed by making one

typedef char* my;

and then doing "my $foo;". Next, overload the ++ and -- operators... ohh, you get my drift :)