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Using your language of choice, golf a quine.

A quine is a non-empty computer program which takes no input and produces a copy of its own source code as its only output.

No cheating -- that means that you can't just read the source file and print it. Also, in many languages, an empty file is also a quine: that isn't considered a legit quine either.

No error quines -- there is already a separate challenge for error quines.

Points for:

  • Smallest code (in bytes)
  • Most obfuscated/obscure solution
  • Using esoteric/obscure languages
  • Successfully using languages that are difficult to golf in

The following Stack Snippet can be used to get a quick view of the current score in each language, and thus to know which languages have existing answers and what sort of target you have to beat:

var QUESTION_ID=69;
var OVERRIDE_USER=98;

var ANSWER_FILTER="!t)IWYnsLAZle2tQ3KqrVveCRJfxcRLe";var COMMENT_FILTER="!)Q2B_A2kjfAiU78X(md6BoYk";var answers=[],answers_hash,answer_ids,answer_page=1,more_answers=!0,comment_page;function answersUrl(index){return"https://api.stackexchange.com/2.2/questions/"+QUESTION_ID+"/answers?page="+index+"&pagesize=100&order=desc&sort=creation&site=codegolf&filter="+ANSWER_FILTER}
function commentUrl(index,answers){return"https://api.stackexchange.com/2.2/answers/"+answers.join(';')+"/comments?page="+index+"&pagesize=100&order=desc&sort=creation&site=codegolf&filter="+COMMENT_FILTER}
function getAnswers(){jQuery.ajax({url:answersUrl(answer_page++),method:"get",dataType:"jsonp",crossDomain:!0,success:function(data){answers.push.apply(answers,data.items);answers_hash=[];answer_ids=[];data.items.forEach(function(a){a.comments=[];var id=+a.share_link.match(/\d+/);answer_ids.push(id);answers_hash[id]=a});if(!data.has_more)more_answers=!1;comment_page=1;getComments()}})}
function getComments(){jQuery.ajax({url:commentUrl(comment_page++,answer_ids),method:"get",dataType:"jsonp",crossDomain:!0,success:function(data){data.items.forEach(function(c){if(c.owner.user_id===OVERRIDE_USER)
answers_hash[c.post_id].comments.push(c)});if(data.has_more)getComments();else if(more_answers)getAnswers();else process()}})}
getAnswers();var SCORE_REG=(function(){var headerTag=String.raw `h\d`
var score=String.raw `\-?\d+\.?\d*`
var normalText=String.raw `[^\n<>]*`
var strikethrough=String.raw `<s>${normalText}</s>|<strike>${normalText}</strike>|<del>${normalText}</del>`
var noDigitText=String.raw `[^\n\d<>]*`
var htmlTag=String.raw `<[^\n<>]+>`
return new RegExp(String.raw `<${headerTag}>`+String.raw `\s*([^\n,]*[^\s,]),.*?`+String.raw `(${score})`+String.raw `(?=`+String.raw `${noDigitText}`+String.raw `(?:(?:${strikethrough}|${htmlTag})${noDigitText})*`+String.raw `</${headerTag}>`+String.raw `)`)})();var OVERRIDE_REG=/^Override\s*header:\s*/i;function getAuthorName(a){return a.owner.display_name}
function process(){var valid=[];answers.forEach(function(a){var body=a.body;a.comments.forEach(function(c){if(OVERRIDE_REG.test(c.body))
body='<h1>'+c.body.replace(OVERRIDE_REG,'')+'</h1>'});var match=body.match(SCORE_REG);if(match)
valid.push({user:getAuthorName(a),size:+match[2],language:match[1],link:a.share_link,})});valid.sort(function(a,b){var aB=a.size,bB=b.size;return aB-bB});var languages={};var place=1;var lastSize=null;var lastPlace=1;valid.forEach(function(a){if(a.size!=lastSize)
lastPlace=place;lastSize=a.size;++place;var answer=jQuery("#answer-template").html();answer=answer.replace("{{PLACE}}",lastPlace+".").replace("{{NAME}}",a.user).replace("{{LANGUAGE}}",a.language).replace("{{SIZE}}",a.size).replace("{{LINK}}",a.link);answer=jQuery(answer);jQuery("#answers").append(answer);var lang=a.language;lang=jQuery('<i>'+a.language+'</i>').text().toLowerCase();languages[lang]=languages[lang]||{lang:a.language,user:a.user,size:a.size,link:a.link,uniq:lang}});var langs=[];for(var lang in languages)
if(languages.hasOwnProperty(lang))
langs.push(languages[lang]);langs.sort(function(a,b){if(a.uniq>b.uniq)return 1;if(a.uniq<b.uniq)return-1;return 0});for(var i=0;i<langs.length;++i)
{var language=jQuery("#language-template").html();var lang=langs[i];language=language.replace("{{LANGUAGE}}",lang.lang).replace("{{NAME}}",lang.user).replace("{{SIZE}}",lang.size).replace("{{LINK}}",lang.link);language=jQuery(language);jQuery("#languages").append(language)}}
body{text-align:left!important}#answer-list{padding:10px;float:left}#language-list{padding:10px;float:left}table thead{font-weight:700}table td{padding:5px}
 <script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://cdn.sstatic.net/Sites/codegolf/primary.css?v=f52df912b654"> <div id="language-list"> <h2>Winners by Language</h2> <table class="language-list"> <thead> <tr><td>Language</td><td>User</td><td>Score</td></tr></thead> <tbody id="languages"> </tbody> </table> </div><div id="answer-list"> <h2>Leaderboard</h2> <table class="answer-list"> <thead> <tr><td></td><td>Author</td><td>Language</td><td>Size</td></tr></thead> <tbody id="answers"> </tbody> </table> </div><table style="display: none"> <tbody id="answer-template"> <tr><td>{{PLACE}}</td><td>{{NAME}}</td><td>{{LANGUAGE}}</td><td><a href="{{LINK}}">{{SIZE}}</a></td></tr></tbody> </table> <table style="display: none"> <tbody id="language-template"> <tr><td>{{LANGUAGE}}</td><td>{{NAME}}</td><td><a href="{{LINK}}">{{SIZE}}</a></td></tr></tbody> </table> 

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3
  • 6
    \$\begingroup\$ Do you not mean, "Golf you a quine for greater good!"? \$\endgroup\$ Commented May 3, 2011 at 2:49
  • 64
    \$\begingroup\$ @muntoo it's a play on "Learn you a Haskell for Great Good". \$\endgroup\$ Commented May 3, 2011 at 2:52
  • 28
    \$\begingroup\$ Did anybody notice that this is question 69? \$\endgroup\$
    – aidan0626
    Commented Oct 24, 2020 at 22:47

460 Answers 460

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0
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ColdFusion, 276 bytes

<cfset u=Chr(34)><cfset q="<cfset u=Chr(34)><cfset q=%s%s%s><cfoutput>%screateObject(%sjava%s,%sjava.lang.String%s).format(q,[u,q,u,Chr(35),u,u,u,u,Chr(35)])%s</cfoutput>"><cfoutput>#createObject("java","java.lang.String").format(q,[u,q,u,Chr(35),u,u,u,u,Chr(35)])#</cfoutput>

I've never used ColdFusion, but after seeing @Danninta's post on Self-growing code codee codeee codeeee I thought I'd play around. This could almost certainly be golfed down by someone that actually knows the language, so feel free to add a new answer.

Tested locally on lucee-express-5.2.6.60

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0
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Jstx, 4 bytes

£↕26

Try it online!

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3
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ You might want to include an explanation, I'd be interested! Also I believe you'll need to include a newline in your code since the output of this program seems to include one as well. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 16:34
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ I assume you are the created of Jstx and the GitHub? In your documentation you mention all the possible commands/operations/functions, but not which character represents it. Since I couldn't find it in the documentation, what commands/operators/functions do these £ and represent? \$\endgroup\$ Commented Apr 20, 2018 at 12:03
  • \$\begingroup\$ It's not a solid association between opcodes and bytes, and it changes from version to version of the interpreter and compiler. In fact some opcodes can actually remap every opcode to byte association at runtime. Fortunately you don't need to worry about which bytes correspond to which instructions because all the programming is done directly through instructions using the Jstx compiler, then the resulting bytes can be interpreted with the same version of the Jstx interpreter. \$\endgroup\$
    – Quantum64
    Commented Apr 21, 2018 at 16:53
0
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PHP, 147 bytes

<?php $c= <<<'s'
	$n='<?php $c= <<<\'s\''."\n";global $c;echo($n.$c."\ns;\n".'$e=create_function("",$c);$e();');
s;
$e=create_function("",$c);$e();

Try it online!

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0
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VBA, 77 bytes

An anonymous VBE immediate window quine.

c=Chr(34):q="c=Chr(34):q=:?Replace(q,Chr(7),c+q+c)":?Replace(q,Chr(7),c+q+c)
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0
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Runic Enchantments, 7 bytes

"'<~S@|

Try it online!

Explanation

  <        Entry
"'         Push the " character (loop around)
      |    Mirror (loop around)
"          Begin string mode
 '<~S@|    Push the string '<~S@|
"          End string mode
 '<~       Push and pop a < character
    S      Swap stack the following also work, r: reverse, q: concatenate, +: add
     @     Print and terminate
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0
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Tidy, 71 bytes

q:=34|chr|str;a:="q:=34|chr|str;a:=%swrite(a%%(q.a.q))"write(a%(q.a.q))

Try it online!

q:=34|chr|str gets a quote character, and a:=... defines the format string. Finally, write(a%(q.a.q)) formats a with a surrounded by quotes.

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0
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Tamsin, 67 bytes

main='->T&$:repr(T)->U&\'main=\'+U+T.'->T&$:repr(T)->U&'main='+U+T.

Ungolfed (isn't a quine, but outputs a quine):

main =  '→T&$:repr(T)→U&\'main=\'+U+T.' → T
     &  $:repr(T) → U
     &  'main=' + U + T.

Tamsin has a builtin that formats strings correctly, which makes this fairly easy.

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0
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anyfix, 29 bytes

“8221"’OƥO«"ƥ«”8221"’OƥO«"ƥ«

Try it online!

Another half finished golfing language. This is rather longer since the string quoting uses different starting and ending quotes, both with large ordinal values. There's probably a shorter way that I'm missing.

Explanation

“8221"’OƥO«"ƥ«”                    Push string
               8221                Push 8221
                   "’              Duplicate and decrement
                     Oƥ            Convert to character and print (starting quote)
                       O«          Convert to character and swap with string
                         "ƥ        Duplicate string and print
                           «       And swap end quote back to top of stack
                                   Implicitly print from top of stack to bottom
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0
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Atari BASIC. 4 bytes

1 L.

Well known since the release of the language, and the result of two quirks of this BASIC dialect. Most BASICs only let you run outside commands in immediate mode, but Atari BASIC allows a line number here. Secondly, there's a full list of abbreviations for the common commands.

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1
  • \$\begingroup\$ I thought about entering this in common 8-BIT basic, but I am not sure about this rule: "No cheating -- that means that you can't just read the source file and print it", so my entry is non-competing and just for fun. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jun 3, 2023 at 16:51
-2
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Conway's Game of Life, 7 bytes

!
**
**

Uses Plaintext format.

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11
  • \$\begingroup\$ 5 bytes, you missed the newline. Alternatively, in Standard Plaintext: **\n** \$\endgroup\$ Commented May 27, 2017 at 23:30
  • \$\begingroup\$ What interpreter are you running this in? \$\endgroup\$
    – Wheat Wizard
    Commented May 28, 2017 at 20:50
  • \$\begingroup\$ @WheatWizard This is not necessarily run in an interpreter, it simply means "a 2x2 square of live cells in an empty grid". \$\endgroup\$
    – MD XF
    Commented May 28, 2017 at 21:16
  • 4
    \$\begingroup\$ -1 this method of IO is very limited \$\endgroup\$
    – ASCII-only
    Commented Aug 28, 2017 at 2:31
  • 6
    \$\begingroup\$ This is no different from the answer 1 in most languages, because it doesn't do any computation or have intermediate states. \$\endgroup\$
    – Wezl
    Commented Apr 17, 2021 at 23:58
1
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