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I'll argue for it not being cheating in this case. Consider this C quine: #include <stdio.h>
int main(int c,char** v){char*s="#include <stdio.h>%cint main(int c,char** v){char*s=%c%s%c;printf(s,10,34,s,34,10);}%c";printf(s,10,34,s,34,10);}
Surely this should count as a non-cheated quine? Still, parts of the code (namely, the contents of string s) are embedded directly in the binary: % clang -std=c99 -pedantic quine.c -o quine; strings quine | grep include
#include <stdio.h>%cint main(int c,char** v){char*s=%c%s%c;printf(s,10,34,s,34,10);}%c
Even though parts of the original source survive in the binary and are passed as pointers to a print function, the source code itself doesn't get read at compile or runtime (aside from being read once into the compiler).If it's OK to read parts of the loaded binary to use as strings, I don't see why it wouldn't be OK to read the whole loaded binary, as long as you touch the source code file. I'd simply accept that the platform allows for some fairly trivial quines. |