Browse
Category
DiscussionsPuzzles / Events

My last puzzle was a bit obscure. This one is a comfortably old language that everyone should know.

Open
Krotho

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*

Comment has been collapsed.

25 Comments
Percy

Okay wtf

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.
TheCyberDruid

Can't One Bust Only Lamers?

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.
ColbyTheDog

Tl;dr

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.
TheCyberDruid

Oh, the irony

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.
Curtis41

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

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

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.
Krotho

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

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.
Curtis41

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
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.
Krotho

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
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.
Curtis41

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
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.
Krotho

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
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.
HistoChic

Ack COBOL! Nightmares from my college days.

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.
TheCyberDruid

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

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.
Krotho

What do you mean could have?

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.
TheCyberDruid

I stand corrected. You are evil. Truly evil.

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.
Krotho

I was thinking of using this for the next puzzle.

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.
TheCyberDruid

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

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.
Krotho

You still have time!

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.
Paulusi

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

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.
ColbyTheDog

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

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.
fiftykyu

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

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.
PapaSmok

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
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.
Fet

Bump for solved somewhat improperly.

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.
Krotho

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
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.
chour

Bump for truth revealed.

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.
Rudokhvist

Bump for solved

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Sign in through Steam to add a comment.