RE: Shortest non-numeric Perl expression for each number

The following snippet may yield some interesting, though often misleading
insight.

# WARNING! This program generates random code
# DO NOT to run this on a privileged account
#
$|++;
close STDERR;
close STDIN;

my @Chars = ( ' ', a..z, A..Z, split '',
'~!@#\$%^&*()-_=+\\|[{]};:\'",<.>/?');
my %Seen;
my $Length = 1;

search ('', $Length++) while 1;

sub search {
  my ($search_str, $search_len) = @_;
  undef @_;
  if ($search_len) {
    for my $character (@Chars) {
      search( $search_str.$character, $search_len - 1 )
    }
  }
  else {
    next if $search_str =~ /dump|exit/;
    my $value = eval $search_str;
    print "$value\t$search_str\n" if !$@ && $value > 0 && $value eq int
$value;
  }
}

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andrew Savige [mailto:[email protected]] 
> Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2004 11:13 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Shortest non-numeric Perl expression for each number
> 
> 
> I'm interested to learn the shortest Perl expression for each
> number -- but without using any numbers. Here's what I've come
> up with so far. Improvements welcome. Oh, and please feel free
> to extend the table below ($X[60] being especially juicy;-).
> 
> BTW, $= is my favourite Perl built-in variable. What's yours?
> 
> /-\
> 
> $X[0]  = $%;
> $X[1]  = !$%;
> $X[2]  = $^F;
> $X[3]  = $^F+!$%;
> $X[4]  = $^F+$^F;
> $X[5]  = $^F+$^F+!$%;
> $X[6]  = $^F+$^F+$^F;
> $X[6]  = ($==~/./,$&);
> $X[7]  = $=>>$^F+!$%;
> $X[8]  = !$%.$%-$^F;
> $X[9]  = !$%.$%-!$%;
> $X[10] = !$%.$%;
> $X[11] = !$%.!$%;
> $X[11] = !$%x$^F;
> $X[12] = !$%.$^F;
> $X[13] = !$%.$^F+!$%;
> $X[14] = !$%.$^F+$^F;
> $X[15] = $=>>$^F;
> $X[16] = $^F.$%-$^F-$^F;
> $X[17] = $^F.$%-$^F-!$%;
> $X[18] = $^F.$%-$^F;
> $X[19] = $^F.$%-!$%;
> $X[20] = $^F.$%;
> $X[21] = $^F.!$%;
> $X[22] = $^F.$^F;
> $X[23] = $^F.$^F+!$%;
> $X[24] = $^F.$^F+$^F;
> $X[25] = $^F.$^F+$^F+!$%;
> $X[26] = $=/$^F-$^F-$^F;
> $X[27] = $=/$^F-$^F-!$%;
> $X[28] = $=/$^F-$^F;
> $X[29] = $=/$^F-!$%;
> $X[30] = $=/$^F;
> 
> for my $i (0..$#X) {
>    print "$i $X[$i]\n";
>    $i == $X[$i] or warn "oops!\n";
> }
> 
> 
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>