Most elegant, amusing or strange code one liners

Question

As an example I offer this, which was used to clear the screen in COBOL.

DISPLAY SPACES UPON CRT

Answer 1

while (true) System.out.println("SO isn't really meant for open-ended questions like this.");

This little one-liner kills the discussion.

(Sorry for the snarkiness, I think it's time for me to go home.)

Answer 2

From the Python FAQ

print map(lambda x,f=lambda x,f:(x<=1) or (f(x-1,f)+f(x-2,f)): f(x,f),range(10))

Answer 3

<td align="right" style="text-align: left">

It's a tug of war!

Answer 4

This question reminds me of the site The Daily WTF. Check it out if you've never heard of it before.

Answer 5

toilet.flush if toilet.full?

Answer 6

My favorite bash script thingy. Originally written by http://twitter.com/jf

curl -Is slashdot.org | egrep '^X-(F|B|L)' | cut -d \- -f 2

Answer 7

...to steal some ThinkGeek swag:

rm -rf /bin/laden

Answer 8

This is not super complex but I've always been charmed by this method of unbuffering IO on a file handle in perl without changing the currently selected file handle (er, technically it does change it, but it changes it back and you don't have to know what the currently selected file handle is)

select((select(SOMEFILEHANDLE), $| = 1)[0]);

Answer 9

For me, it must be the Jaromil bash forkbomb, looks like a poem :)

:(){ :|:& };:

This is an explanation of the Jaromil program

Also, the more concise Windows shell forkbomb is a sure winner in any golf match:

%0|%0

Answer 10

It's not really strange, but one bit of code that I've always found particularly amusing decrementing a value and checking it as it approaches zero, e.g.

while(foo-->0)
{
    //...
}

Answer 11

//&>/dev/null;x="${0%.*}";[ ! "$x" -ot "$0" ]||(rm -f "$x";cc -o "$x" "$0")&&"$x" $*;exit

I'd call this the most useful. I put this at the top of any simple single-file C scripts, so that I can execute them directly. It compiles if necessary and calls the executable, passing on any parameters.

Answer 12

This is on all my forum signitures:

$me->selfDestruct('NOW');

or the ocassional

if($work.status == 'done'){ takeBreak(TRUE); }

however it always evaluates to false.

Answer 13

I don't know why but it has always tickled me when I run across this.

my @lines = map ( /:\s+(\S*)\s*$/, grep ( /Name/, <> ));");

Answer 14

My personal favorite I met in Schneier's "Applied Cryptography", to swap two integers:

x ^= y; y^= x; x^=y;

Answer 15

/* no comment */

Answer 16

I always thought

while ((*dst++ = *src++) != '\0');

was an interesting use of pointers to copy a string.

Answer 17

A perl-regexp to check if a number is prime:

 print "Prime" if (1 x shift) !~ /^1?$|^(11+?)\1+$/

(I would like to give credit for this one, but I can't remember who actually dicovered it - not me)

Answer 18

Best I ever saw was someone's sig on usenet that was a couple of lines of ob-C that generated the mandlebrot set. it was freaking cool:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}||||||||{{{zyvrwuW{|||||}}}}}}~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}|||||||||{{{zyxwoaqwxz{{{|||||}}}}}}~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}|||||||||{{zzzyxvn    Knwyz{{{{||||}}}}}}~~~~~~~
~~~~~~}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}||||||||{{zyxuxxxwvuq     svwwyzzzyr{||}}}}}}}~~~~~
~~~~}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}|||||{{{{{zzzxt>  qf             pttfqeqz{|}}}}}}}}~~~
~~~}}}}}}}}}}}}}}|||{{{{{{{{{zzzywotn                     atyz{||}}}}}}}}~~
~~}}}}}}}}}||||{{zwvyyyyyyyyyyyxvsP                        swvz{||}}}}}}}}~
~}}}}|||||||{{{{zyxvpN[ur]spvwwvi                           qxz{|||}}}}}}}}
~}||||||||{{{{{zyytun         qq                            avz{|||}}}}}}}}
~||||||{zzzzyyxtroqb           a                            xz{{|||}}}}}}}}
~@G::# 6# (                                              pvxyz{{||||}}}}}}}
~||||||{zzzzyyxtroqb           a                            xz{{|||}}}}}}}}
~}||||||||{{{{{zyytun         qq                            avz{|||}}}}}}}}
~}}}}|||||||{{{{zyxvpN[ur]spvwwvi                           qxz{|||}}}}}}}}
~~}}}}}}}}}||||{{zwvyyyyyyyyyyyxvsP                        swvz{||}}}}}}}}~
~~~}}}}}}}}}}}}}}|||{{{{{{{{{zzzywotn                     atyz{||}}}}}}}}~~
~~~~}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}|||||{{{{{zzzxt>  qf             pttfqeqz{|}}}}}}}}~~~
~~~~~~}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}||||||||{{zyxuxxxwvuq     svwwyzzzyr{||}}}}}}}~~~~~
~~~~~~~~}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}|||||||||{{zzzyxvn    Knwyz{{{{||||}}}}}}~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}|||||||||{{{zyxwoaqwxz{{{|||||}}}}}}~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}||||||||{{{zyvrwuW{|||||}}}}}}~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}|||||{zmt{{{||||}}}}}~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Source that does it:

main(){float A,B,P,Q,X,Y,d;int i,D=80,n=3120;for(X=-2.,Y=-1.5,d=6./D;B=2*A
*B+Y,A=P-Q+X,n;((P=A*A)+(Q=B*B)>4||++i>D)&&putchar(*((n--%D?X+=d/2,i<D?i%11
:11:(X=-2.0,Y+=d,12))+"Mandelbrot! \n"))&&(A=B=P=Q=i=0));}

Answer 19

cd /pub
more beer

Answer 20

//For each inventory that is a sofa and has a comfortclass, test sleeping in it, and if you like it save it to the wishList.
wishList = inventories.match({type: "Sofa", comfortClass: required}).forEach(testSleepInObjectFunction);

Elegant, eigh? Soon it's gonna be possible in C# too!!!

Answer 21

$Completed = AskUserWhatTheyWantAndTakeCareOfIt();

Answer 22

Console.WriteLine("Hello World!");

It ensures that your system is set up properly and ready for any programming action!

Answer 23

Truncate Table

One line of SQL can do so much damage to data that would take many programs hundreds of lines of code.

Answer 24

mvn clean compile sonar:sonar

Answer 25

return 0;

It doesn't get better than that

Answer 26

rm -rf *.*

Answer 27

chdir %windir%

Answer 28

make

Short and to the point.

Answer 29

Arrays.sort(somearray)

Answer 30

When I used ASP classic a lot, I was always frustrated that there was no floor/ceiling functions available. int works for floor, but there was no built-in ceiling, until I somehow, somewhere, I figured this out:

ceilOfX = -int -x

I always thought that was an elegant one-liner.

Answer 31

if (this == null) return;

I tend to see some kind of poetry in that line. (I've actually ran across it)

Answer 32

From the unix C shell...

$ ar x God

ar: God does not exist

Answer 33

C++ Interview question.

1. What does the following line do. C++;

Answer 34

I've always found interesting how IBM i RPG declares its files:

 FSOMEFILE  UF A E           K Disk    UsrOpn Commit

Declares the externally described disk file SOMEFILE for Input/Update/Write with keyed access, user-controlled open and commitment control.