Hast Thou Slain the Jabberwock?

Question

Your task is to output the exact string

The Jabberwocky

without taking input. Normal rules for input and output apply, so both functions and programs are allowed.

Of course there is a catch, it wouldn't be fun without a catch. Your program, when stripped of non-alphabetic characters, must start the poem The Jabberwocky (case insensitive). To start the poem it must be a continuous substring of the poem starting at the beginning. The empty string is fine (although you probably won't score very well).

Here is the text for reference:

twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebewarethejabberwockmysonthejawsthatbitetheclawsthatcatchbewarethejubjubbirdandshunthefrumiousbandersnatchhetookhisvorpalswordinhandlongtimethemanxomefoehesoughtsorestedhebythetumtumtreeandstoodawhileinthoughtandasinuffishthoughthestoodthejabberwockwitheyesofflamecamewhifflingthroughthetulgeywoodandburbledasitcameonetwoonetwoandthroughandthroughthevorpalbladewentsnickersnackheleftitdeadandwithitsheadhewentgalumphingbackandhastthouslainthejabberwockcometomyarmsmybeamishboyofrabjousdaycalloohcallayhechortledinhisjoytwasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabe

Here is a program you can use to test this property.

If you run out of poem to use you may not use any additional alphabetic characters.

Alphabetic characters are characters a-z and A-Z here is the complete list:

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

Scoring

Your program will be scored in the number of non-alphabetic bytes used with fewer being better.

Here is a Haskell program that scores answers. (This assumes inputs are valid)

Example program

The following program would be valid:

twas&*brilliga77812nd Thesli thyt Oves didgy reand Gim bleinth ewab eal lmims ywe""""""""
ret h eb or o g o ve sa n dthemomerAthsoutgrabebewaretheJABBERWOCKmysonthe)(*)()((*98980908(()*(jawsthatbit

When stripped down to alphabetic characters it is:

twasbrilligandTheslithytOvesdidgyreandGimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheb orogovesandthemomerAthsoutgrabebewaretheJABBERWOCKmysonthejawsthatbit

Which matches the first bit of the poem (case insensitive).

This program would score 59 because it contains these non-alphabetic characters:

&*77812           """"""""
          )(*)()((*98980908(()*(

Answer 1

oOo CODE, score 0

Thanks to Dennis for golfing the Brainfuck code.

TwASbRIlLIgAnDthEsliTHyTOvEsdiDgyreaNdgImbleinthEwaBeaLlmimSywEreThEBoroGoveSAndTheMOmERaTHSoutGRabEbeWArEthEjaBbeRWockMYsONtHEJawsTHaTBiTEThecLawSthATcaTChBeWAReTHeJuBJuBBiRDAndsHUNtHeFRuMIoUSbANdERSnatchheTooKHisvORpaLswORdinhAndLonGtiMetHEmanXomEFoEHeSOUg

Try it online!

I've got bad news for this challenge... :(

oOo CODE is just a binary encoding of brainfuck which uses the case of a letter for each bit. So yeah, since the poem is long enough (or the output short enough) to cover a Brainfuck program that prints The Jabberwocky (without actually trying hard to golf it), this becomes a trivial optimal answer.

Answer 2

C, score  104   79  74

Thanks to @gastropner for lowering the score to 79 and thanks to @wizzwizz4 for lowering it further to 74!

*t,w;a(s,b,rilligand){*(t//he
=s++)="lithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebewareThe Jabberwock\0mysonthejawsthat"[b++]?//i
:121;*t>12e1?*++t//hecl
=0:a//wsthatcatchbewarethejubjubbirdandshunthefrumiou
(s,b);}an;der(s,n){a(//tchhetookhi
s,88);}

Try it online!

Answer 3

Fission 2, score 3

twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebewaRe"The Jabberwock"mysonthejawsthatbitetheclawsthatcatchbewarethejubjubbirdandshunthefrumiousbandersnatchhetookhisvorpalswordinhandlongtimethemanxomefoehesoughtsorestedhebythetumtumtreeandstoodawhileinthoughtandasinuffishthoughthestoodthejabberwockwitheyesofflamecamewhifflingthroughthetulgeywoodandburbledasitcameonetwoonetwoandthroughandthroughthevorpalbladewentsnickersnackheleftitdeadandwithitsheadhewentgalumphingbackandhastthouslainthejabberwockcometomyarmsmybeamishboyO

Try it online!

Explanation

We can ignore most of the lowercase letters, they just set an atom's energy to their code point.

...Re"The Jabberwock"my...oyO

The uppercase R is the program's entry point, as it creates an atom going right. As I said, we can ignore the e. Then " toggles string mode, which just prints all characters it encounters to STDOUT, which gives us The Jabberwock. That only leaves the y. We could use the y that's coming up immediately in y, but then we'd have to waste at least one non-letter byte on printing it (!) and possibly another on terminating the program.

Instead, we patiently wait for y to show up immediately before o in the poem. Because that lets us use O which prints the character and destroys the atom, terminating the program. This way, the only non-letter characters we need are the space and the two quotes.

Answer 4

Alice, score 7

"T/was"bri@lligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsywe
rethe borogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebewarethejabberwockmysonthejawsthatbitetheclawsthatcatchbewarethejubjubbirdandshunthefrumiousbandersnatchhetookhisvorpalswordinhandlongtimethemanxomefoehesoughtsorestedhebythetumtumtreeandstoodawhileinthoughtandasinuffishthoughthestoodthejabberwockwitheyesofflamecamewhifflingthroughthetulgeywoodandburbledasitcameonetwoonetwoandthroughandthroughthevorpalbl
adewentsn

Try it online!

The / makes the IP move diagonally and bounce off the edges, so the instructions actually executed are "The "ono@. The n command (in ordinal mode) pushes the string "Jabberwocky" if the top of the stack is empty, and o outputs the top of the stack.

Answer 5

Jelly, score  6  4

twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathSOUTGRABEBEWARE“The Jabberwock”m”y

A full program printing the result
(as a monadic link it prints The Jabberwock as a side-effect and returns the character y)

Inserts the characters “ ”” into a case-changed prefix of the poem.

This works because:

1. The last h before SOUTGRABEBEWARE“The Jabberwock”m”y is (at least at the time of writing!) an undefined atom, which makes that all become a new link which takes the default input of 0 and performs some monadic functions, SOUTGRABEBEWARE, which yield 1 (see below).

2. 1“The Jabberwock”m then performs m, modulo slicing, on "The Jabberwock" with a slice size of 1, yielding "The Jabberwock".

3. The trailing ”y is a new leading constant chain so Jelly prints that list of characters and then yields the character y, and since it's now the end of the program this then gets printed.

 implicit input = 0
S sum             0
O cast to ordinal 0
U upend           [0]
T truthy indices  []
G group           []
R range           []
A absolute value  []
B to-binary       []
E all-equal?      1
B to-binary       [1]
E all-equal?      1
W wrap            [1]
A absolute value  [1]
R range           [[1]]
E all-equal?      1

---

Previous 6 byter:

twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebeware
“The Jabberwock”m1“y

Try it online!

The six non-poem characters are a newline plus “ ”1“.

---

Alternative 6s:

“T“wasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebewaret“he Jabberwock”m2“y

twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebewaret
“The Jabberwockmy”ṪṭṖ

Answer 6

Charcoal, score 3

twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebeware⎚The Jabberwock⌈my

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Inserted the three characters: ⎚ ⌈

...it also works with the whole poem.

How?

twas ... ware⎚The Jabberwock⌈my - no input
twas ... ware                    - print this text     >  twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebeware
             ⎚                  - clear the screen    >
               The Jabberwock    - print this text     > The Jabberwock
                             ⌈   - (print) maximum of:
                              my -   this text         > The Jabberwocky

Answer 7

Ruby (-p), Score 12

$_=#twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebeware
'The Jabberwock'+#m
?y

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Abuse all the comments!

With the -p flag, ruby will print whatever stored in $_. Requires a single line of any input.

Answer 8

Charcoal, score: 5 4

twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebeware⎚The Jabberwock¿m¦y

Try it online! Edit: Saved 1 byte thanks to @ASCII-only. Explanation: Translates to the following verbose code:

Print("twas...beware");
Clear();
Print("The Jabberwock");
if ("m") Print("y");

Answer 9

Foo, score 5

twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebeware"The Jabberwock"m"y"

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Answer 10

><>, Score: 13 12

\twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebeware
\"The Jabberwockmy"$~\sonthejawsthatbitetheclawsthatcatchbewarethejubjubbirdandshunthefrumiousbandersnatchhetookhisvorpalswordinhandlongtimethemanxomefoehesoughtsorestedhebythetumtumtreeandstoodawhileinthoughtandasinuffishthoughthestoodthejabberwockwitheyeso
fflamecamewhifflingth>ro<

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Verification and scoring.

Immediately redirects to the second line, which pushes "The Jabberwockmy" in reverse to the stack. $~ pops the excess m and >ro< prints the whole stack, reversing it beforehand.

Answer 11

Retina 0.8.2, score: 21 20 18 16 13 8 6

|twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebeware
The Jabberwock0$*my

Try it online! Edit: Score reduced by 2 thanks to @MartinEnder.

Answer 12

C, score 23

twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimble(int**h){//ewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerat
*h//soutgrabebeware
="The Jabberwock"//m
"y";}

Try it online!

Answer 13

PowerShell, Score: 19 10

#twasbrilligandTheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebewarethe
'The Jabberwock'+#m
'y'

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Port of Pavel's Ruby answer. Thanks to Jo King for -9 points.

The strings are + concatenated together. Once the comments are removed and the code parsed, PowerShell sees this as 'The Jabberwock'+'y'. That string is left on the pipeline and output is implicit.

Answer 14

05AB1E, score 14

"twasbrilligand""The ""slithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebewarethe"Š"Jabberwock"+"my"Š

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Answer 15

Yabasic, 13

Thanks for @Pavel's Ruby answer!

#twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebeware
?"The Jabberwock";//m
?"y"

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Answer 16

VBA, score 5

Run in the Immediate Window:

?twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebeware"The Jabberwock"m"y

How it works:

? - This prints out output as a string

-

twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebeware - without Explicit declaration, this is treated as an empty string

-

"The Jabberwock" - String. When you put 2 variables/strings next to each other, VBA will automatically concatenate them. (2 non-variable strings would require a space so as not to add a double-quote)

-

m - Another implicit empty-string, automatically concatenated

-

"y - Another string. Left open, the Immediate Window will automatically close this when it hits the end of the line - again, automatically concatenated

-

1 question-mark, 1 space and 3 double-quotes. VBA sees this as ?"" & "The Jabberwock" & "" & "y" or ?"The Jabberwocky"

Answer 17

Haskell, score 12

twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebeware="The Jabberwock"++{-m-}"y"

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Defines a zero-argument function twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebeware :: String whose output is "The Jabberwocky".

Answer 18

Java (OpenJDK 9), score 11

twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebeware->"The Jabberwock"+//m
"y"

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Credits

• -2 score thanks to Kevin Cruijssen
• -3 score thanks to Wheat Wizard

Answer 19

Jelly, score: 8

“ĠȥṘ®ṖȤ»

Try it online!

Just compresses the string, and is an empty string when all non-alphabet characters are removed. Annoyingly, the shortest compressed form, “81Iȯd» has alphabetical characters, neither of which are t or w

Answer 20

Stax, 11

£«≡¿«_→Ä:£◘

Run and debug online!

Just a compressed string literal that is in turn packed.

Answer 21

Canvas, score 5

twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebeware∙The Jabberwockｐm∙yｐ

Try it here!

Answer 22

SOGL V0.12, score 9

twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebeware”The” Jabberwock”:⁄m+ y+

Try it Here!

Answer 23

Pip, score 5

twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebewarethejabberwockmysonthejawsthatbitetheclawsthatcatchbewarethejubjubbirdandshunthefrumiousbandersnatchhetookhisvorpalswordinhandlongtimethemanxomefoehesoughtsorestedhebythetumtumtreeandstoodawhileinthoughtandasinuffishthoughthestOOD|"The Jabberwock"witheyesofflamecamewhifflingthroughthetulge'y

Try it online!

Fortunately, lowercase letters in Pip are all variables, which are no-ops in expressions by themselves. The interesting part of the code:

OOD|"The Jabberwock"

The scanner breaks up OOD as O followed by OD. OD is an undefined variable, which evaluates as nil (falsey); we then logical-or this with "The Jabberwock", and O outputs it without a newline.

'y

Single-character string y. Since it is the last expression in the program, it is printed.

Answer 24

SmileBASIC, score 10

@twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebeware?"The Jabberwock";
@m?"y

This was pretty much taken directly from the Yabasic answer, and since SB is a better language, we can shorten it by using labels rather than comments, which eliminates the need for some of the line breaks

There is also this alternative solution, for the same size:

@twasbrillig ... ?"The Jabberwock"+@my[2]

A label inside an expression is treated as a string. (@my == "@my"), so taking character 2 gives "y".

Answer 25

C (gcc), score 58

The useful fact that // style comments + newlines are cheaper than old-style ones comes straight from @wizzwizz4's comment for @Steadybox's answer.

The -m32 flag is required.

Some might be brought to a frumious mood by the lengthy name of the function to call, whereas others might rightly find such objections mimsy; in the end, we must all of us heed the siren song of low scores.

twasbrilligan;d(t,h,e,slithytovesdidgyreandgimble)int*h,*e;//wabeallmimsywere
{t--?*h++=*e++,//borogovesan
d(t,h,e):0;}momerathsoutgrabebewar;*e="The Jabberwock\171";mysonthejawsthatbitetheclawsthatcatchbewarethejubjubbirdandshunthefrumiousbandersnatchhetookhisvorpalswordinhandlongtimethemanxomefoehesoug(h,tsoreste){d(4,h,e);}

Try it online!

Answer 26

Batch, score 15 11

:twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebewarethejabberwockmysonthejawsthatbiteth
@ec%lawsthatcatchbewarethejubjubbirdandshunthefrumiousbandersnatchhetookhisvorpalswordinhandlongtimethemanxomefoehesoughtsorestedhebythetumtumtreeandstoodawhileinthoughtandasinuffisht%ho%ughthestood% The Jabberwock%withe%y

Basically just echo The Jabberwocky with unused variables and labels.

Old version (score 24):

:twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebewarethejabberwockmysonthejawsthatbitetheclawsthatcatchbewarethejubjubbirdandshunthefrumiousbandersnatchhetookhisvorpalswordinhandlongtimethemanxomefoehesoughtsorestedhebythetumtumtreeandstoodawhileinthoughtandasinuffishthoughthestoodthejabberwockwitheyesofflamecamewh
@if %1%fl%i==%ngthroughthetulgeywoodandburbledasitcameonetwoonetwoandthroughandthroughthevorpalbladewentsnickersnackheleftitdeadandwithitsheadhewentgalumphingbackandhastthousla%i n The Jabberwock%cometom%y
:armsmybeamishboyofrabjousdaycalloohcallayh
@echo %*

Requires code to be saved in a file named n.bat and run from the same directory.

Alternate version which can have any name (score 27):

:twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebewarethejabberwockmysonthejawsthatbitetheclawsthatcatchbewarethejubjubbirdandshunthefrumiousbandersnatchhetookhisvorpalswordinhandlongtimethemanxomefoehesoughtsorestedhebythetumtumtreeandstoodawhileinthoughtandasinuffishthoughthestoodthejabberwockwitheyesofflamecamewh
@if %1%fl%i==%ngthroughthetulgeywoodandburbledasitcameonetwoonetwoandthroughandthroughthevorpalbladewentsnickersnackheleftitdeadandwithitsheadhewentgalumphingbackandhastthousla%i %~n0 The Jabberwock%cometom%y
:armsmybeamishboyofrabjousdaycalloohcallayh
@echo %*

Explanation (with variables removed):

:twas...                         Label (No labels were used, no goto in the poem)
@if %1i==i %~n0 The Jabberwocky  If no command line arguments, run this batch file again
:arms...                          with the arguments 'The Jabberwocky'
@echo %*                         Echo all arguments

Answer 27

Perl 5, subroutine, score 11

{twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebeware;'The Jabberwock'.~'X'}

but with the character \x86 (v134) instead of the X.

(perlsub says "The signature is part of a subroutine's body. Normally the body of a subroutine is simply a braced block of code.")

Answer 28

Ruby, 9 non letter bytes

twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebewarethejabberwockmysonthejawsthatbitetheclawsthatcatchbewarethejubjubbirdandshunthefrumiousbandersnatchhetookhisvor=p alswordinhandlongtimethemanxomefoehesoughtsorestedhebythetumtumtreeandstoodawhileinthoughtandasinuffishthoughthestood="The Jabberwock"+withe=?y

Try it online!

Golfed version (for readability):

x=p z="The Jabberwock"+w=?y

Uses a few long and useless variables. In ruby, you can put whatever_you_want= before an expression, and it will still return that expression, just with the side effect of creating an oddly-named variable.

Answer 29

Self-modifying Brainfuck, score 16

twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebeware␀The Jabberwock␀my<[<<]>[.>]>>.

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Explanation

Initially the tape is set up like this:

$$ \begin{aligned} \dots\ \texttt{␀}\ \texttt{T}\ \texttt{h}\ \texttt{e}\ \texttt{␠}\ \texttt{J}\ \texttt{a}\ \texttt{b}\ \texttt{b}\ \texttt{e}\ \texttt{r}\ \texttt{w}\ \texttt{o}\ \texttt{c}\ \texttt{k}\ \texttt{␀}\ \texttt{m}\ \texttt{y}\ \texttt{<}\ \texttt{[}\ \texttt{<}\ \texttt{<}\ \texttt{]}\ \texttt{>}\ \texttt{[}\ \texttt{.}\ \texttt{>}\ \texttt{]}\ \texttt{>}\ \texttt{>}\ \texttt{.}\ & \texttt{␀}\ \texttt{␀}\ \dots \\ & \uparrow \end{aligned} $$

Since we want to move to the beginning of the string we use <[<<] such that we jump over the first \$\texttt{␀}\$ character.

Now we can just move to the \$\texttt{T}\$ with > and print the whole string with [.>] and since we picked the substring where the next \$\texttt{y}\$ is not far, we can just jump to it directely and print it with >>..

Answer 30

Fission, score 6

twasbrilligandtheslithytovesdidgyreandgimbleinthewabeallmimsyweretheborogovesandthemomerathsoutgrabebewaRe"The Jabberwock"m"y";

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