The Letter A without A

Question

Your task is to display the letter "A" alone, without anything else, except any form of trailing newlines if you cannot avoid them, doing so in a program and/or snippet. Code that returns (instead of printing) is allowed.

Both the lowercase and uppercase versions of the letter "A" are acceptable (that is, unicode U+0061 or unicode U+0041. Other character encodings that aren't Unicode are allowed, but either way, the resulting output of your code must be the latin letter "A", and not any lookalikes or homoglyphs)

You must not use any of the below characters in your code, regardless of the character encoding that you pick:

• "A", whether uppercase or lowercase.

• "U", whether lowercase or uppercase.

• X, whether uppercase or lowercase.

• +

• &

• #

• 0

• 1

• 4

• 5

• 6

• 7

• 9

Cheating, loopholes, etc, are not allowed.

Since this is code-golf, the shortest solution, in bytes, that follows all the rules, is the winner.

---

Validity Checker

This Stack Snippet checks to make sure your code doesn't use the restricted characters. It might not work properly for some character encodings.

var t = prompt("Input your code.");

if (/[AaUuXx+&#0145679]/.test(t)) {
  alert("Contains a disallowed character!");
} else {
  alert("No disallowed characters");
}

This Stack Snippet that makes sure you don't have a disallowed character is also available on JSFiddle.

Leaderboard

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Answer 1

Python 2, 14 bytes

print`3<3`[~3]

The expression 3<3 gives the Boolean False, and the backticks give its string representation 'False'. From here, it remains to extract the letter a. Python is 0-indexed, so the a is at index 1, which is a banned character. It can be expressed as 3-2, but there's a shorter way. Python allows indexing from the back, with index -1 for the last entry, -2 for the one before it, and so on. We want index -4, but 4 is also a banned number. But, we can express it as ~3 using the bit-complement ~, which gives -n-1 for ~n.

Answer 2

Pluso, 1 byte

o

Pluso Esolangs Page.

Pluso contains a single accumulator, that starts with the value 1. It uses two commands, p which increments the accumulator (mod 27), and o which prints the current value as an uppercase ASCII character, A-Z or space (where 1-26 represents A-Z respectively, and 0 represents space).

As the accumulator starts at 1, the command o with no prior p will output A.

Answer 3

Pyth, 2 bytes

hG

Test it in the Pyth Compiler.

How it works

 G  Yield the lowercase alphabet.
h   Extract the first character.

Answer 4

PHP, 9 6 bytes

<?=O^_^Q;

For 9 bytes: Inspired by @Ton Hospel's answer. Plus, it has the added benefit of looking a bit like a Kaomoji. :-)

The 6 bytes improved version:

<?=~¾;

wherein ¾ has the hex code of 0xBE (it is important to save the file in Latin-1 encoding, not UTF-8!).

Answer 5

05AB1E, 3 2 bytes

Th

Explanation

T   # push 10
 h  # convert to hex

Try it online

Saved 1 byte thanks to Adnan

Answer 6

JavaScript (ES6), 17 16 14 bytes

Saved two bytes thanks to Neil!

_=>` ${-_}`[2]

Returns the second character of NaN, which is a.

This is the shortest I could come up with for A, 43 42 bytes:

_=>`${[][`constr${`${!_}`[2]}ctor`]}`[-~8]

Who says being an obfuscator doesn't help with code golf? Not I!

Explanations

The first one, in depth.

_=>` ${-_}`[2]

-_ is NaN, because _ is undefined. To get this as a string, one would need one of the following:

-_+""
`${-_}`
(-_).toString()

The last is too long, and the first uses +. So we use the second one. Now, the a is at index 1. This isn't any good, because 1 is forbidden. However, being a template string, we can put a space in there to make it at index 2, thus leaving us with ` ${-_}`.

---

The second one, in depth.

_=>`${[][`constr${`${!_}`[2]}ctor`]}`[-~8]

This one was a doozy.

_=>`                                `[-~8]

This is the 9th character of the inside template string, -~8 being equal to 9. In this case, this template string is just for stringification. This is the inside equation being stringified, in between ${...}:

[][`constr${`${!_}`[2]}ctor`]

Let's expand this a bit:

(new Array())[`constr${`${!_}`[2]}ctor`]

This gets the property `constr${${!""}[2]}ctor` from an empty array. This property is, of course, a template string, but it has some text around it. It's roughly equivalent to:

"constr" + `${!_}`[2] + "ctor"

The inside is in turn equivalent to:

(!_).toString()[2]

!_ is true (because _ is undefined, and !undefined === true), and stringified is "true". We get the second character of it, u; we have to get it this way to avoid explicitly putting u in our code.

So, this inside bit is equivalent to:

"constr" + "u" + "ctor" === "constructor"

So we are getting the constructor of the Array, the Array function. I couldn't put this down explicitly because it contains the forbidden A. Now, stringifying the Array function yields "function Array() { [native code] }".

Back to the original code:

_=>`${[][`constr${`${!_}`[2]}ctor`]}`[-~8]

This is equivalent to, as we've seen:

_=>Array.toString()[-~8]

Equivalent to:

_=>Array.toString()[9]

Finally equivalent to:

_=>"A"

Answer 7

Hexagony, 4 bytes

Ayyy lmao? Quite golfy for a non-golfing language haha. Code:

B(;@

Try it online!

A more readable form:

 B (
; @ .
 . .

This puts the ASCII value of the letter B, which is 66, on the current memory edge. It substracts it by one using ( and prints it with ;. After that, the program is terminated using @.

Obligatory path image:

Answer 8

brainfuck, 16 bytes

-[-[---<]>>-]<-.

This is based on Esolang's brainfuck algorithm for 159.

Try it online!

Answer 9

Jelly, 3 bytes

ØWḢ

Try it online!

How it works

ØWḢ  Main link. No arguments.

ØW   Yield "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789_".
  Ḣ  Head; extract the first character.

---

Jelly, 4 bytes

l-ṾṂ

Try it online!

How it works

l-ṾṂ  Main link. No arguments.

l-    Take the logarithm of 0 with base -1. Yields (nan+infj).
  Ṿ   Uneval; yield the string representation, i.e., "nanıinf".
   Ṃ  Take the minimum, returning 'a'.

Answer 10

CJam, 3 bytes

'@)

Try it online!

How it works

'@   Push the character '@' on the stack.
  )  Increment its code point, yielding 'A'.

Answer 11

Actually, 2 bytes

úF

Try it online!

Explanation:

úF
ú   lowercase English alphabet
 F  first element

Answer 12

Ruby, 15 12 bytes

$><<to_s[-3]

Attempt This Online!

Answer 13

Bubblegum, 1 byte

"

or

B

Everyone seemed to forget it existed...

Answer 14

Java, 55 bytes

void f(){System.err.write('c'-2);System.err.println();}

Since the code has to print it, one of the two built-in writers are required. System.out is, well, out, because it contains u. System.err works, however.

The next hurdle is Java's handling of char and int. Since it is not allowed to cast to char because it contains a, and because 'c' - 2 gets promoted to int, another mechanism is required. System.err is a PrintWriter, which has a write(char) method but not write(int). Putting 'c' - 2 in there forces it to char without a cast.

Finally, every time I ran the program the buffer for System.err would not flush like it is supposed to, and the program printed nothing. So I had to flush it manually. However, System.err.flush() is not allowed, so I called println() which implicitly flushes the underlying stream.

Answer 15

Vim, 2 Keystrokes

vim -u NONE then run the following (-u NONE turns off customization)

i<up>

When vim is run in compatible mode the arrow keys are don't get interpreted properly. <up> gets interpreted <esc>OA which leave the following in insert mode. Which would leave (with a couple of trailing newlines)

A

i starts insert mode.
<up> exits insert mode, opens a line above and enters A into the buffer

Example of people encountering this in the wild. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6987317/while-moving-the-cursor-across-a-vim-process-open-in-a-tmux-session-every-now-a/6988748#6988748

Answer 16

Perl, 9 8 bytes

xor is still allowed, but say isn't. So for 9 bytes:

print$/^K

However using output to STDERR gives 8 bytes:

die~"\x9e\xf5"

Replace \x9e and \xf5 by their literal versions. Or generate the executable file using:

perl -e 'printf q(die~"%s"),~"a\n"' > a.pl

Answer 17

><>, 6 bytes

'|;o-$

this creates a string of characters, bounces and creates it again in reverse, flips the top 2 stack items and subtracts: '|' (124) minus ';' (59) is 'A' (65)

Try it online

Answer 18

><>, 7 4 bytes

Saved 3 bytes thanks to Teal pelican

"-o.

Try it online!

Explanation

"-o."   # pushes the string "-o."
-       # subtracts the charcode of o from the charcode of . (dot), 111-46=65
o       # prints as character
.       # tries to pop 2 coordinates to jump to, but as nothing is left on the stack
        # the program ends in an error

Answer 19

MATL, 5 bytes

YNVH)

Try it Online

Explanation

YN      % Creates a NaN value (not a number)
V       % Convert it to a string
H)      % Grab the second letter ('a')
        % Implicitly display the result

---

My original answer was the straight forward approach using the pre-defined literal lY2 which yields 'A'...'Z' and then selecting the first element, 'A'.

lY2l)

Answer 20

Javascript, 18 bytes 16 bytes 12 bytes 11 bytes

` ${!2}`[2]

Based on modified jsfuck basics (had to figure out how to replace + with -).

Ungolfed?

Well, at least a version with comments (note that this version will probably not run):

` ${      // whitespace to make "a" the third letter
  !2      // returns false
}`        // convert to string "false"
[2]       // index the third letter in " false" (note the whitespace)

Old solution:

`${![]}`[-(-!![])]

Answer 21

Vim, 16 13 11 10 keystrokes

Thanks to H Walters for saving two keys

Thanks to DJMcMayhem for saving another!

:h%<cr>jvyZZp

:h%<cr> #open help for percent
jvy     #move down one char (to the letter "a"), visual mode the character, yank
ZZ      #exit help for percent
p       #put yanked character

Answer 22

JavaScript (ES6), 21 bytes

_=>(8^2).toString(22)

I originally tried converting false to string to do this, but it took me 23 bytes at the time. I've since come up with a shorter way, which is this for 14 bytes:

_=>`!${!2}`[2]

I don't think you can get an uppercase A under the rules, since you need one of String.fromCharCode or .toUpperCase(), both of which contain a.

Answer 23

R, 27 12 bytes

EDIT : New version, from an excellent idea from @Jarko Dubbeldam

LETTERS[T*T]

---

Quite a funny challenge !

Basically, this takes the 26th element of the reversed vector containing the uppercase letters (LETTERS, which is a R's built-in vector)

Previous versions (same number of bytes) :

L=LETTERS;rev(L)[length(L)]
rev((L=LETTERS))[length(L)]

Answer 24

Brainfuck, 192 19 bytes

----[>---<----]>--.

Thanks to @NinjaBearMonkey for helping me save hella bytes

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------.

I'm not good at Brainfuck so I'm sure theres a shorter solution, but it works by decrementing below 0, rolling the byte over, and keep going until it gets down to 'A', then it prints.

Answer 25

Lua, 36 bytes

This one took me a while since MANY of the standard Lua functions are taken away from the rules (all of math, string.char, string.match, pairs, even next)

This takes advantage of the fact that Lua has a global _VERSION that usually starts with "Lua" (e.g., Lua 5.1, or similar for other versions), so unless this is run on a non-mainstream interpreter, the third character will be an 'a'

print(({_VERSION:find("..(.)")})[3])

The {...}[3] is to group the results of find which also includes the indices where it matched, and then return the third item which is the matched character (the a)

Answer 26

Vim, 6 bytes

grNg??

Challenge doesn't block N, and Vim has a ROT-13 feature. FDinoff's answer is probably cooler, but this is ASCII and works everywhere.

Answer 27

Haskell, 10 bytes

As a function (or rather a statement as no input is required)

f=pred 'B'

does the trick. Try it on Ideone. A full program is impossible as this would need to contain a main.

Answer 28

C, (19?) 24 bytes

Thanks to Dennis:

f(){printf("%c",88-23);}

same length:

f(){printf("%c",'C'-2);}

which enables also lowercase:

f(){printf("%c",'c'-2);}

There is a 19 bytes solution as a function modifying its parameter, which has a flaw:

g(int*p){*p='C'-2;}

//Usage:

main(){
  int c; //cannot be char
  g(&c);
  printf("%c\n",c);
}

If c was declared char, g modifies the whole int so it smashes the stack which causes other values to be modified or the programm to abort with an error message. The only way to circumvent is to declare int c; in main and print with "%c", but that feels like a loophole.

older solutions

f(){printf("%c",'B'-2/2);} //26 bytes
f(i){i='B';printf("%c",--i);} //29 bytes
f(){int*i="B";int j[]={*i-(2/2),2-2};printf("%s",j);} //53 bytes

Just a function, since main is forbidden.

Answer 29

Brachylog, 4 bytes

@Ztw

Try it online!

Explanation

@Z      The string "zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba"
  tw    Write the last element to STDOUT

Answer 30

Cubix, 5 bytes

o'@)^

Try in the online interpreter!

Cubix is a language where (as the name implies) everything is executed on the faces of a cube. This code maps to the following cube:

  o
' @ ) ^
  .

The basic idea of this answer is to get a nearby character and increment it to what we need. In Cubix, @ is the exit command needed to terminate the program, but also conveniently right under 'A' in the ASCII table. This means we can use the character once to mean two different things, saving bytes - here's the order in which the code is run:

• '@ pushes the character code 64 to the stack.
• ) increments the top of stack, yielding the desired character.
• ^ sends the instruction pointer north, wrapping around to...
• o outputs the top of stack, A.
• @ terminates the program.