Just Another Perl Hacker

Just another Perl hacker, or JAPH, typically refers to a Perl program that prints "Just another Perl hacker," (the comma is canonical but is occasionally omitted). Short JAPH programs are often used as signatures in online forums, or as T-shirt designs. The phrase or acronym is also occasionally used (without code) for a signature.

JAPH programs are classically done using extremely obfuscated methods, in the spirit of the Obfuscated C Contest. More recently, as the phenomenon has become well-known, the phrase is sometimes used in ordinary examples (without obfuscation).

The idea of using tiny Perl programs that print a signature ''as a signature'' was originated by Randal L. Schwartz, in his postings to the newsgroup comp.lang.perl. He wrote many of the JAPHs which are shown below.

Examples

JAPH program without obfuscation:

print "Just another Perl hacker,";

Embedding JAPH in opaque code:

$_='987;s/^(\d+)/$1-1/e;$1?eval:print"Just another Perl hacker,"';eval;

Decoding JAPH from a transposed string literal:

$_="krJhruaesrltre c a cnP,ohet";$_.=$1,print$2while s/(..)(.)//;

Printing out JAPH as separate processes:

for $i (0..4)

kill INT => $$;

Appearing as if it does something completely unrelated to printing JAPH:

$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgc";
tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print;

Forking processes to print out one letter each in the correct order:

@P=split//,".URRUU\c8R";@d=split//,"\nrekcah xinU / lreP rehtona tsuJ";sub pp;p;p;p;p;map%p;wait until$?;map%p;$_=$d qsleep rand(2)if/\S/;print

Using only Perl keywords (no punctuation):

not exp log srand xor s qq qx xor
s x x length uc ord and print chr
ord for qw q join use sub tied qx
xor eval xor print qq q q xor int
eval lc q m cos and print chr ord
for qw y abs ne open tied hex exp
ref y m xor scalar srand print qq
q q xor int eval lc qq y sqrt cos
and print chr ord for qw x printf
each return local x y or print qq
s s and eval q s undef or oct xor
time xor ref print chr int ord lc
foreach qw y hex alarm chdir kill
exec return y s gt sin sort split

Using only punctuation, no alphanumeric characters. This breaks after Perl 5.30.0, as using $# and $* create fatal errors. This JAPH was written b
Eric Roode
and only works on Unix and Unix-like systems:

`$=`;$_=\%!;($_)=/(.)/;$

++$, ;($.,$/,$,,$\,$",$;,$^,$#,$~,$*,$:,@%)=(
$!=~/(.)(.).(.)(.)(.)(.)..(.)(.)(.)..(.)......(.)/,$"),$=++;$.++;$.++;
$_++;$_++;($_,$\,$,)=($~.$"."$;$/$% ?_$\$,$:$% ?,$"&$~,$#,);$,++
;$,++;$^, =$";`$_$\$,$/$:$;$~$*$% ?.$~$*$$% ?;$\$"$^$~$*.>&$=`

A much shorter one, using only punctuation, based on th
EyeDrops
module:

''=~('(?`]()`@.@]@%

ASCII art">}%[@`@!#@%[').',"})')

ASCII art (to make this dromedary">ASCII_art.html" ;"title="}%[@`@!#@%[').',"})')

ASCII art">}%[@`@!#@%[').',"})')

ASCII art (to make this dromedary-shaped code work, the console size needs to be set to at least 119×48):Originally posted a
perlmonks.org
by user liverpole.

#
sub j(\$) sub asub p$w= eval;$b=$w?'1;7;':"";($j,$u,$s,$t,$a,$n,$o
,$h,$c,$k,$p,$e,$r,$l,$C)=split/}/,'Tw*JSK8IAg*PJ[*J@wR}*JR]*QJ[*J'.
'BA*JQK8I*JC}KUz]BAIJT]*QJ[R?-R[e]\RI'.'}Tn*JQ]wRAI*JDnR8QAU}wT8KT'.
']n*JEI*EJR*QJ]*JR*DJ@IQ[}*JSe*JD JPe*'.'JBI/KI}T8@?PcdnfgVCBRcP'.
'?ABKV}*JWe*JD JPe*JC?8B*JE};Vq*OJQ/IP .'wQ}*JWeOe/U*OJd[OI@*BJ*JXn*J>w}CWq*OJc8KJ?O[e">I@*BJ*JXn*J>w.html" ;"title=".'wQ}*JWeOe/U*OJd[OI@*BJ*JXn*J>w">.'wQ}*JWeOe/U*OJd[OI@*BJ*JXn*J>w}CWq*OJc8KJ?O[e/T*QJP?}*JSe*JCnTe'.
'QIAKJR}*JV]wRAI*J?}T]*RJcJI[\]3;U]Uq*PM[wV]W]WCT*DM*SJ'. 'ZP[Z'.
'PZa[\]UKVgogK9K*QJ[\]n[RI@*EH@IddR[Q[]T]T]T3o[dk*JE'. '[Z\U'.
'7D$j" ."}AG". "$u}OG"
."$s}WG" ."$t","" ."24}(" ."IJ$a"
."}1G$n" ."}CO$o" ."}GG$t" ."}QC"
."$h}" ."^G$e" ."})IG" ."$r",
"32}?" ."H$p}FG$e}QG$r". "}ZC"
."$l", "28}(LC" ."" ."".
"$h}:" ."J$a}EG". "$c"
."}M" ."C$k}ZG". "$e"
."}" ."dG$r","18" ."}("
."D;" ."$C" )}###
#written 060204 by
#liverpole @@@@@@@
#@@@@@@@@@@@

See also

*"Hello, World!" program
* Obfuscated Perl Contest
* Perl golf

References

Further reading

*

External links

Cultured Perl: The Elegance of JAPH

Cpan.org
a collection of JAPHs at CPAN.

How does this famous JAPh work?
an
Fun With Reserved Keywords
at Stack Overflow explain how blokhead's code works.

{{Perl

Perl
English phrases
Obfuscation
Test items in computer languages
Computer programming folklore