is it possible to write a program which prints its own source code utilizing a "sequence-generating-

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Published on 2010-05-17T14:11:29Z Indexed on 2010/05/18 17:10 UTC
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is it possible to write a program which prints its own source code utilizing a "sequence-generating-function"?

what i call a sequence-generating-function is simply a function which returns a value out of a specific interval (i.e. printable ascii-charecters (32-126)). the point now is, that this generated sequence should be the programs own source-code. as you see, implementing a function which returns an arbitrary sequence is really trivial, but since the returned sequence must contain the implementation of the function itself it is a highly non-trivial task.

this is how such a program (and its corresponding output) could look like

#include <stdio.h>

int fun(int x) {
    ins1;
    ins2;
    ins3;
    .
    .
    .
    return y;
}

int main(void) {
    int i;
    for ( i=0; i<size of the program; i++ ) {
        printf("%c", fun(i));
    }
    return 0;
}

i personally think it is not possible, but since i don't know very much about the underlying matter i posted my thoughts here. i'm really looking forward to hear some opinions!

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