And, just because I'm feeling a bit malicious today, there are two bugs in here. Happy hunting.

For some reason all of the double and single quotes were being converted to & quot;. Just use the pastebin link.

Buggy Code.

EDIT: A day later, I realize that forcing people to debug COBOL is simply too cruel, even for me. This will now compile, but you still need to answer it correctly.

10 years ago*

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Okay wtf

10 years ago
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Can't One Bust Only Lamers?

10 years ago
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Tl;dr

10 years ago
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Oh, the irony

10 years ago
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Compiling main.cobc source code....
$cobc -c -free -x main.cobc 2>&1

main.cobc:20: Error: syntax error, unexpected '&'

10 years ago
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Oh man, how did quotes get there. I blame my coding environment.

10 years ago
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I'm only copypaste the code here: http://www.compileonline.com/compile_cobol_online.php I have no idea I'm doing :D

10 years ago
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When I pasted the code into here, it looked fine. The preview looked fine. But the final output had & quot; everywhere, which is not what I intended. Dammit.

10 years ago
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Maybe some UTF-8 conversion made for the forum code. Also, I have got this:

main.cobc:71: Error: syntax error, unexpected "END PROGRAM"

10 years ago
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Yep, that's part of the puzzle. Just imagine, 50 million lines, 5 mainframes, 20 databases containing trillions of records. And somewhere there is a syntax error. And the guys who originally owned the mainframes are all retired.

This is positively therapeutic, almost schadenfreudic.

10 years ago
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Ack COBOL! Nightmares from my college days.

10 years ago
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To everyone thinking this is the worst kind of puzzle, he could have used this instead.

10 years ago
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What do you mean could have?

10 years ago
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I stand corrected. You are evil. Truly evil.

10 years ago
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I was thinking of using this for the next puzzle.

10 years ago
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Give non-coding nerds a chance and use LOLCODE for it ;)

10 years ago
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You still have time!

10 years ago
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I see you have too much free time to spare in your week ;)

10 years ago
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+++++ ++++[ ->+++ +++++ +<]>+ ++++. <+++[ ->+++ <]>++ .<+++ [->++ +<]>+
+.-.< +++[- >+++< ]>+++ ++.-- ----- .<+++ [->-- -<]>- ---.+ +++++ +++.<
+++++ [->-- ---<] >--.< +++[- >+++< ]>+++ ++.++ ++++. ----- -.<++ +++++
+[->- ----- --<]> -.<++ +++++ +[->+ +++++ ++<]> +++++ +++++ +++++ +.---
-.+++ ++++. <++++ ++++[ ->--- ----- <]>-- ---.<

10 years ago
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Thank you bump... Seems I need to explore the forum bump... :)

10 years ago
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Bump, cause out of curiosity, I decided to use a 'proper' way to solve this:)

I have to admit, being a programmer was not an easy job that days... :)

10 years ago
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Bump for solved somewhat improperly.

10 years ago
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Come now, the only proper way to solve this is with an axe, kindling, and a multi-million dollar budget. Running this on anything less than a z990 would be an insult to this noble and misunderstood language.

10 years ago
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Bump for truth revealed.

10 years ago
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Bump for solved

10 years ago
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