What is going on with 'gets(stdin)' on the site coderbyte?












91















Coderbyte is an online coding challenge site (I found it just 2 minutes ago).



The first C++ challenge you are greeted with has a C++ skeleton you need to modify:




#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;

int FirstFactorial(int num) {

// Code goes here
return num;

}

int main() {

// Keep this function call here
cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));
return 0;

}



If you are little familiar with C++ the first thing* that pops in your eyes is:



int FirstFactorial(int num);
cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));


So, ok, the code calls gets which is deprecated since C++11 and removed since C++14 which is bad in itself.



But then I realize: gets is of type char*(char*). So it shouldn't accept a FILE* parameter and the result shouldn't be usable in the place of an int parameter, but ... not only it compiles without any warnings or errors, but it runs and actually passes the correct input value to FirstFactorial.



Outside of this particular site, the code doesn't compile (as expected), so what is going on here?





*Actually the first one is using namespace std but that is irrelevant to my issue here.










share|improve this question

























  • Note that stdin in the standard library is a FILE*, and a pointer to any type converts to char*, which is the type of the argument of gets(). However, you should never, ever, ever write that kind of code outside an obfuscated C contest. If your compiler even accepts it, add more warning flags, and if you’re trying to fix a codebase that has that construct in it, turn warnings into errors.

    – Davislor
    2 days ago













  • @Davislor no it doesn't "candidate function not viable: no known conversion from 'struct _IO_FILE *' to 'char *' for 1st argument"

    – bolov
    yesterday






  • 2





    @Davislor huh, that might be true for ancient C, but definitely not for C++.

    – Quentin
    yesterday











  • @Quentin Yeah. That shouldn’t compile. The intended challenge might’ve been, “Take this broken code, read my mind about what it’s supposed to do, and fix it,” but in that case there should be a real specification. With test cases.

    – Davislor
    yesterday






  • 5





    I’m surprised no-one tried this, but gets(stdin ) (with an extra space) produces the expected C++ error.

    – Roman Odaisky
    yesterday
















91















Coderbyte is an online coding challenge site (I found it just 2 minutes ago).



The first C++ challenge you are greeted with has a C++ skeleton you need to modify:




#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;

int FirstFactorial(int num) {

// Code goes here
return num;

}

int main() {

// Keep this function call here
cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));
return 0;

}



If you are little familiar with C++ the first thing* that pops in your eyes is:



int FirstFactorial(int num);
cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));


So, ok, the code calls gets which is deprecated since C++11 and removed since C++14 which is bad in itself.



But then I realize: gets is of type char*(char*). So it shouldn't accept a FILE* parameter and the result shouldn't be usable in the place of an int parameter, but ... not only it compiles without any warnings or errors, but it runs and actually passes the correct input value to FirstFactorial.



Outside of this particular site, the code doesn't compile (as expected), so what is going on here?





*Actually the first one is using namespace std but that is irrelevant to my issue here.










share|improve this question

























  • Note that stdin in the standard library is a FILE*, and a pointer to any type converts to char*, which is the type of the argument of gets(). However, you should never, ever, ever write that kind of code outside an obfuscated C contest. If your compiler even accepts it, add more warning flags, and if you’re trying to fix a codebase that has that construct in it, turn warnings into errors.

    – Davislor
    2 days ago













  • @Davislor no it doesn't "candidate function not viable: no known conversion from 'struct _IO_FILE *' to 'char *' for 1st argument"

    – bolov
    yesterday






  • 2





    @Davislor huh, that might be true for ancient C, but definitely not for C++.

    – Quentin
    yesterday











  • @Quentin Yeah. That shouldn’t compile. The intended challenge might’ve been, “Take this broken code, read my mind about what it’s supposed to do, and fix it,” but in that case there should be a real specification. With test cases.

    – Davislor
    yesterday






  • 5





    I’m surprised no-one tried this, but gets(stdin ) (with an extra space) produces the expected C++ error.

    – Roman Odaisky
    yesterday














91












91








91


11






Coderbyte is an online coding challenge site (I found it just 2 minutes ago).



The first C++ challenge you are greeted with has a C++ skeleton you need to modify:




#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;

int FirstFactorial(int num) {

// Code goes here
return num;

}

int main() {

// Keep this function call here
cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));
return 0;

}



If you are little familiar with C++ the first thing* that pops in your eyes is:



int FirstFactorial(int num);
cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));


So, ok, the code calls gets which is deprecated since C++11 and removed since C++14 which is bad in itself.



But then I realize: gets is of type char*(char*). So it shouldn't accept a FILE* parameter and the result shouldn't be usable in the place of an int parameter, but ... not only it compiles without any warnings or errors, but it runs and actually passes the correct input value to FirstFactorial.



Outside of this particular site, the code doesn't compile (as expected), so what is going on here?





*Actually the first one is using namespace std but that is irrelevant to my issue here.










share|improve this question
















Coderbyte is an online coding challenge site (I found it just 2 minutes ago).



The first C++ challenge you are greeted with has a C++ skeleton you need to modify:




#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;

int FirstFactorial(int num) {

// Code goes here
return num;

}

int main() {

// Keep this function call here
cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));
return 0;

}



If you are little familiar with C++ the first thing* that pops in your eyes is:



int FirstFactorial(int num);
cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));


So, ok, the code calls gets which is deprecated since C++11 and removed since C++14 which is bad in itself.



But then I realize: gets is of type char*(char*). So it shouldn't accept a FILE* parameter and the result shouldn't be usable in the place of an int parameter, but ... not only it compiles without any warnings or errors, but it runs and actually passes the correct input value to FirstFactorial.



Outside of this particular site, the code doesn't compile (as expected), so what is going on here?





*Actually the first one is using namespace std but that is irrelevant to my issue here.







c++ input gets standards-compliance






share|improve this question















share|improve this question













share|improve this question




share|improve this question








edited 17 hours ago









Peter Mortensen

13.8k1987113




13.8k1987113










asked 2 days ago









bolovbolov

32.6k676140




32.6k676140













  • Note that stdin in the standard library is a FILE*, and a pointer to any type converts to char*, which is the type of the argument of gets(). However, you should never, ever, ever write that kind of code outside an obfuscated C contest. If your compiler even accepts it, add more warning flags, and if you’re trying to fix a codebase that has that construct in it, turn warnings into errors.

    – Davislor
    2 days ago













  • @Davislor no it doesn't "candidate function not viable: no known conversion from 'struct _IO_FILE *' to 'char *' for 1st argument"

    – bolov
    yesterday






  • 2





    @Davislor huh, that might be true for ancient C, but definitely not for C++.

    – Quentin
    yesterday











  • @Quentin Yeah. That shouldn’t compile. The intended challenge might’ve been, “Take this broken code, read my mind about what it’s supposed to do, and fix it,” but in that case there should be a real specification. With test cases.

    – Davislor
    yesterday






  • 5





    I’m surprised no-one tried this, but gets(stdin ) (with an extra space) produces the expected C++ error.

    – Roman Odaisky
    yesterday



















  • Note that stdin in the standard library is a FILE*, and a pointer to any type converts to char*, which is the type of the argument of gets(). However, you should never, ever, ever write that kind of code outside an obfuscated C contest. If your compiler even accepts it, add more warning flags, and if you’re trying to fix a codebase that has that construct in it, turn warnings into errors.

    – Davislor
    2 days ago













  • @Davislor no it doesn't "candidate function not viable: no known conversion from 'struct _IO_FILE *' to 'char *' for 1st argument"

    – bolov
    yesterday






  • 2





    @Davislor huh, that might be true for ancient C, but definitely not for C++.

    – Quentin
    yesterday











  • @Quentin Yeah. That shouldn’t compile. The intended challenge might’ve been, “Take this broken code, read my mind about what it’s supposed to do, and fix it,” but in that case there should be a real specification. With test cases.

    – Davislor
    yesterday






  • 5





    I’m surprised no-one tried this, but gets(stdin ) (with an extra space) produces the expected C++ error.

    – Roman Odaisky
    yesterday

















Note that stdin in the standard library is a FILE*, and a pointer to any type converts to char*, which is the type of the argument of gets(). However, you should never, ever, ever write that kind of code outside an obfuscated C contest. If your compiler even accepts it, add more warning flags, and if you’re trying to fix a codebase that has that construct in it, turn warnings into errors.

– Davislor
2 days ago







Note that stdin in the standard library is a FILE*, and a pointer to any type converts to char*, which is the type of the argument of gets(). However, you should never, ever, ever write that kind of code outside an obfuscated C contest. If your compiler even accepts it, add more warning flags, and if you’re trying to fix a codebase that has that construct in it, turn warnings into errors.

– Davislor
2 days ago















@Davislor no it doesn't "candidate function not viable: no known conversion from 'struct _IO_FILE *' to 'char *' for 1st argument"

– bolov
yesterday





@Davislor no it doesn't "candidate function not viable: no known conversion from 'struct _IO_FILE *' to 'char *' for 1st argument"

– bolov
yesterday




2




2





@Davislor huh, that might be true for ancient C, but definitely not for C++.

– Quentin
yesterday





@Davislor huh, that might be true for ancient C, but definitely not for C++.

– Quentin
yesterday













@Quentin Yeah. That shouldn’t compile. The intended challenge might’ve been, “Take this broken code, read my mind about what it’s supposed to do, and fix it,” but in that case there should be a real specification. With test cases.

– Davislor
yesterday





@Quentin Yeah. That shouldn’t compile. The intended challenge might’ve been, “Take this broken code, read my mind about what it’s supposed to do, and fix it,” but in that case there should be a real specification. With test cases.

– Davislor
yesterday




5




5





I’m surprised no-one tried this, but gets(stdin ) (with an extra space) produces the expected C++ error.

– Roman Odaisky
yesterday





I’m surprised no-one tried this, but gets(stdin ) (with an extra space) produces the expected C++ error.

– Roman Odaisky
yesterday












3 Answers
3






active

oldest

votes


















124














I'm the founder of Coderbyte and also the guy who created this "gets(stdin)" hack.



The comments on this post are correct that is is a form of find-and-replace, so let me explain why I did this really quickly.



Back in the day when I first created the site (around 2012), it only supported JavaScript. There was no way to "read in input" in JavaScript running in the browser, and so there would be a function foo(input) and I used the readline() function from Node.js to call it like foo(readline()). Except I was a kid and didn't know better, so I literally just replaced readline() with the input at run-time. So foo(readline()) became foo(2) or foo("hello") which worked fine for JavaScript.



Around 2013/2014 I added more languages and used third-party service to evaluate code online, but it was very difficult to do stdin/stdout with the services I was using, so I stuck with the same silly find-and-replace for languages like Python, Ruby, and eventually C++, C#, etc.



Fast forward to today, I run the code in my own containers, but never updated the way stdin/stdout works because people have gotten used to the weird hack (some people have even posted in forums explaining how to get around it).



I know it is not best practice and it isn't helpful for someone learning a new language to see hacks like this, but the idea was for new programmers to not worry about reading input at all and just focus on writing the algorithm to solve the problem. One common complaint about coding challenge sites years ago was that new programmers would spend a lot of time just figuring out how to read from stdin or read lines from a file, so I wanted new coders to avoid this problem on Coderbyte.



I'll be updating the entire editor page soon along with the default code and stdin reading for languages. Hopefully then C++ programmers will enjoy using Coderbyte more :)






share|improve this answer










New contributor




Daniel Borowski is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
















  • 13





    "[B]ut the idea was for new programmers to not worry about reading input at all and just focus on writing the algorithm to solve the problem" - and it didn't occur to you to, instead of writing something that resembles "real" code, just put a made up function name or an obvious placeholder in that spot? Genuinely curious.

    – Ruther Rendommeleigh
    yesterday











  • Suppose that the input is a string instead of a number, let's say "hello". You replace gets(stdin) with "hello" and use that as input to the function to see if the test passes. If my code is wrong and it only passes with the string "world" as input, I can just put a #define gets(string) "world" and every test will pass. Right?

    – ChatterOne
    yesterday






  • 21





    I genuinely didn't expect I was going to choose an answer other than my own when I posted this. Thank you for proving me wrong in such a great way. It's really a pleasure to see your answer.

    – bolov
    yesterday






  • 3





    Very interesting! I would recommend, if you want to keep this hack, that you replace the function call with something like TAKE_INPUT, then use your find-replace to insert #define TAKE_INPUT whatever_here at the top.

    – Draconis
    yesterday






  • 4





    We need more answers starting with "I'm the founder of x and also the guy who created this".

    – pipe
    22 hours ago



















87














I am intrigued. So, time to put the investigation goggles on and since I don't have access to the compiler or compilation flags I need to get inventive. Also because nothing about this code makes sense it's not a bad idea question every assumption.



First let's check the actual type of gets. I have a little trick for that:



template <class> struct Name;

int main() {

Name<decltype(gets)> n;

// keep this function call here
cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));
return 0;

}


And that looks ... normal:




/tmp/613814454/Main.cpp:16:19: warning: 'gets' is deprecated [-Wdeprecated-declarations]
Name<decltype(gets)> n;
^
/usr/include/stdio.h:638:37: note: 'gets' has been explicitly marked deprecated here
extern char *gets (char *__s) __wur __attribute_deprecated__;
^
/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/sys/cdefs.h:254:51: note: expanded from macro '__attribute_deprecated__'
# define __attribute_deprecated__ __attribute__ ((__deprecated__))
^
/tmp/613814454/Main.cpp:16:26: error: implicit instantiation of undefined template 'Name<char *(char *)>'
Name<decltype(gets)> n;
^
/tmp/613814454/Main.cpp:12:25: note: template is declared here
template <class> struct Name;
^
1 warning and 1 error generated.



gets is marked as deprecated and has the signature char *(char *). But then how is FirstFactorial(gets(stdin)); compiling?



Let's try something else:



int main() { 
Name<decltype(gets(stdin))> n;

// keep this function call here
cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));
return 0;

}


Which gives us:




/tmp/286775780/Main.cpp:15:21: error: implicit instantiation of undefined template 'Name<int>'
Name<decltype(8)> n;
^



Finally we are getting something: decltype(8). So the entire gets(stdin) was textually replaced with the input (8).



And the things get weirder. The compiler error continues:




/tmp/596773533/Main.cpp:18:26: error: no matching function for call to 'gets'
cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));
^~~~
/usr/include/stdio.h:638:14: note: candidate function not viable: no known conversion from 'struct _IO_FILE *' to 'char *' for 1st argument
extern char *gets (char *__s) __wur __attribute_deprecated__;



So now we get the expected error for cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));



I checked for a macro and since #undef gets seems to do nothing it looks like it isn't a macro.



But



std::integral_constant<int, gets(stdin)> n;


It compiles.



But



std::integral_constant<int, gets(stdin)> n;    // OK
std::integral_constant<int, gets(stdin)> n2; // ERROR wtf??


Doesn't with the expected error at the n2 line.



And again, almost any modification to main makes the line cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin)); spit out the expected error.



Moreover the stdin actually seems to be empty.



So I can only conclude and speculate they have a little program that parses the source and tries (poorly) to replace gets(stdin) with the test case input value before actually feeding it into the compiler. If anybody has a better theory or actually knows what they are doing please share!



This is obviously a very bad practice. While researching this I found there is at least a question here (example) about this and because people have no idea that there is a site out there who does this their answer is "don't use gets use ... instead" which is indeed a good advice but only confuses the OP more since any attempt at a valid read from stdin will fail on this site.





TLDR



gets(stdin) is invalid C++. It's a gimmick this particular site uses (for what reasons I cannot figure out). If you want to continue to submit on the site (I am neither endorsing it neither not endorsing it) you have to use this construct that otherwise would not make sense, but be aware that it is brittle. Almost any modifications to main will spit out an error. Outside of this site use normal input reading methods.






share|improve this answer





















  • 24





    I'm genuinely amazed. Maybe this Q/A can be a canonical post on why not to learn from coding challenge sites.

    – alter igel
    2 days ago






  • 1





    The "8" comes from the left box at the bottom of the screen. Try typing a text string in there (I tried "maplemaple") and see the result...

    – Stobor
    2 days ago






  • 25





    Something really evil is happening, and I think it's at the level of text replacement in the source code outside of the compiler. Try this: std::cout << "gets(stdin)"; and the output is 8 (or whatever you type into the 'input' field. This is a disgraceful abuse of the language.

    – alter igel
    2 days ago








  • 11





    @Stobor note the quotes around "gets(stdin)". That's a string literal that even the preprocessor wouldn't touch

    – alter igel
    2 days ago






  • 1





    To quote James Kirk: "This is damn peculiar."

    – ApproachingDarknessFish
    yesterday



















49














I tried the following addition to main in the Coderbyte editor:



std::cout << "gets(stdin)";


Where the mysterious and enigmatic snippet gets(stdin) appears inside a string literal. This shouldn't possibly be transformed by anything, not even the preprocessor, and any C++ programmer should expect this code to print the exact string gets(stdin) to the standard output. And yet we see the following output, when compiled and run on coderbyte:



8


Where the value 8 is taken straight from the convenient 'input' field under the editor.



Magic code



From this, it's clear that this online editor is performing blind find-and-replace operations on the source code, substitution appearances of gets(stdin) with the user's 'input'. I would personally call this a misuse of the language that's worse than careless preprocessor macros.



In the context of an online coding challenge website, I'm worried by this because it teaches unconventional, non-standard, meaningless, and at least unsafe practices like gets(stdin), and in a manner that can't be repeated on other platforms.



I'm sure it can't be this hard to just use std::cin and just stream input to a program.






share|improve this answer


























  • and it's not even a blind "find and replace" because sometimes it replaces it sometimes it does not.

    – bolov
    2 days ago






  • 3





    @bolov could it be just the first occurrence of gets(stdin) that is replaced? I meant 'blind' in the sense that it appears to be unaware of the language's syntax or grammar.

    – alter igel
    2 days ago











  • yes, you are right. It replaces the first occurence. I tried putting one before main and that's what I got indeed.

    – bolov
    2 days ago






  • 1





    Further research suggests that that site does it for all languages, not just C++ - python/ruby it uses the function call ("raw_input()" or "STDIN.gets") which would typically return a string from stdin, but ends up doing a string substitution of that string instead. I guess finding a regex match for the getline function was too hard, so they went with gets(stdin) for C/C++.

    – Stobor
    2 days ago






  • 3





    @Stobor dang, you're right. I can confirm this happens for Java too, the line System.out.print(FirstFactorial(s.nextLine()9)); prints 89 even when s is undefined.

    – alter igel
    2 days ago













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3 Answers
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active

oldest

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3 Answers
3






active

oldest

votes









active

oldest

votes






active

oldest

votes









124














I'm the founder of Coderbyte and also the guy who created this "gets(stdin)" hack.



The comments on this post are correct that is is a form of find-and-replace, so let me explain why I did this really quickly.



Back in the day when I first created the site (around 2012), it only supported JavaScript. There was no way to "read in input" in JavaScript running in the browser, and so there would be a function foo(input) and I used the readline() function from Node.js to call it like foo(readline()). Except I was a kid and didn't know better, so I literally just replaced readline() with the input at run-time. So foo(readline()) became foo(2) or foo("hello") which worked fine for JavaScript.



Around 2013/2014 I added more languages and used third-party service to evaluate code online, but it was very difficult to do stdin/stdout with the services I was using, so I stuck with the same silly find-and-replace for languages like Python, Ruby, and eventually C++, C#, etc.



Fast forward to today, I run the code in my own containers, but never updated the way stdin/stdout works because people have gotten used to the weird hack (some people have even posted in forums explaining how to get around it).



I know it is not best practice and it isn't helpful for someone learning a new language to see hacks like this, but the idea was for new programmers to not worry about reading input at all and just focus on writing the algorithm to solve the problem. One common complaint about coding challenge sites years ago was that new programmers would spend a lot of time just figuring out how to read from stdin or read lines from a file, so I wanted new coders to avoid this problem on Coderbyte.



I'll be updating the entire editor page soon along with the default code and stdin reading for languages. Hopefully then C++ programmers will enjoy using Coderbyte more :)






share|improve this answer










New contributor




Daniel Borowski is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
















  • 13





    "[B]ut the idea was for new programmers to not worry about reading input at all and just focus on writing the algorithm to solve the problem" - and it didn't occur to you to, instead of writing something that resembles "real" code, just put a made up function name or an obvious placeholder in that spot? Genuinely curious.

    – Ruther Rendommeleigh
    yesterday











  • Suppose that the input is a string instead of a number, let's say "hello". You replace gets(stdin) with "hello" and use that as input to the function to see if the test passes. If my code is wrong and it only passes with the string "world" as input, I can just put a #define gets(string) "world" and every test will pass. Right?

    – ChatterOne
    yesterday






  • 21





    I genuinely didn't expect I was going to choose an answer other than my own when I posted this. Thank you for proving me wrong in such a great way. It's really a pleasure to see your answer.

    – bolov
    yesterday






  • 3





    Very interesting! I would recommend, if you want to keep this hack, that you replace the function call with something like TAKE_INPUT, then use your find-replace to insert #define TAKE_INPUT whatever_here at the top.

    – Draconis
    yesterday






  • 4





    We need more answers starting with "I'm the founder of x and also the guy who created this".

    – pipe
    22 hours ago
















124














I'm the founder of Coderbyte and also the guy who created this "gets(stdin)" hack.



The comments on this post are correct that is is a form of find-and-replace, so let me explain why I did this really quickly.



Back in the day when I first created the site (around 2012), it only supported JavaScript. There was no way to "read in input" in JavaScript running in the browser, and so there would be a function foo(input) and I used the readline() function from Node.js to call it like foo(readline()). Except I was a kid and didn't know better, so I literally just replaced readline() with the input at run-time. So foo(readline()) became foo(2) or foo("hello") which worked fine for JavaScript.



Around 2013/2014 I added more languages and used third-party service to evaluate code online, but it was very difficult to do stdin/stdout with the services I was using, so I stuck with the same silly find-and-replace for languages like Python, Ruby, and eventually C++, C#, etc.



Fast forward to today, I run the code in my own containers, but never updated the way stdin/stdout works because people have gotten used to the weird hack (some people have even posted in forums explaining how to get around it).



I know it is not best practice and it isn't helpful for someone learning a new language to see hacks like this, but the idea was for new programmers to not worry about reading input at all and just focus on writing the algorithm to solve the problem. One common complaint about coding challenge sites years ago was that new programmers would spend a lot of time just figuring out how to read from stdin or read lines from a file, so I wanted new coders to avoid this problem on Coderbyte.



I'll be updating the entire editor page soon along with the default code and stdin reading for languages. Hopefully then C++ programmers will enjoy using Coderbyte more :)






share|improve this answer










New contributor




Daniel Borowski is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
















  • 13





    "[B]ut the idea was for new programmers to not worry about reading input at all and just focus on writing the algorithm to solve the problem" - and it didn't occur to you to, instead of writing something that resembles "real" code, just put a made up function name or an obvious placeholder in that spot? Genuinely curious.

    – Ruther Rendommeleigh
    yesterday











  • Suppose that the input is a string instead of a number, let's say "hello". You replace gets(stdin) with "hello" and use that as input to the function to see if the test passes. If my code is wrong and it only passes with the string "world" as input, I can just put a #define gets(string) "world" and every test will pass. Right?

    – ChatterOne
    yesterday






  • 21





    I genuinely didn't expect I was going to choose an answer other than my own when I posted this. Thank you for proving me wrong in such a great way. It's really a pleasure to see your answer.

    – bolov
    yesterday






  • 3





    Very interesting! I would recommend, if you want to keep this hack, that you replace the function call with something like TAKE_INPUT, then use your find-replace to insert #define TAKE_INPUT whatever_here at the top.

    – Draconis
    yesterday






  • 4





    We need more answers starting with "I'm the founder of x and also the guy who created this".

    – pipe
    22 hours ago














124












124








124







I'm the founder of Coderbyte and also the guy who created this "gets(stdin)" hack.



The comments on this post are correct that is is a form of find-and-replace, so let me explain why I did this really quickly.



Back in the day when I first created the site (around 2012), it only supported JavaScript. There was no way to "read in input" in JavaScript running in the browser, and so there would be a function foo(input) and I used the readline() function from Node.js to call it like foo(readline()). Except I was a kid and didn't know better, so I literally just replaced readline() with the input at run-time. So foo(readline()) became foo(2) or foo("hello") which worked fine for JavaScript.



Around 2013/2014 I added more languages and used third-party service to evaluate code online, but it was very difficult to do stdin/stdout with the services I was using, so I stuck with the same silly find-and-replace for languages like Python, Ruby, and eventually C++, C#, etc.



Fast forward to today, I run the code in my own containers, but never updated the way stdin/stdout works because people have gotten used to the weird hack (some people have even posted in forums explaining how to get around it).



I know it is not best practice and it isn't helpful for someone learning a new language to see hacks like this, but the idea was for new programmers to not worry about reading input at all and just focus on writing the algorithm to solve the problem. One common complaint about coding challenge sites years ago was that new programmers would spend a lot of time just figuring out how to read from stdin or read lines from a file, so I wanted new coders to avoid this problem on Coderbyte.



I'll be updating the entire editor page soon along with the default code and stdin reading for languages. Hopefully then C++ programmers will enjoy using Coderbyte more :)






share|improve this answer










New contributor




Daniel Borowski is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.










I'm the founder of Coderbyte and also the guy who created this "gets(stdin)" hack.



The comments on this post are correct that is is a form of find-and-replace, so let me explain why I did this really quickly.



Back in the day when I first created the site (around 2012), it only supported JavaScript. There was no way to "read in input" in JavaScript running in the browser, and so there would be a function foo(input) and I used the readline() function from Node.js to call it like foo(readline()). Except I was a kid and didn't know better, so I literally just replaced readline() with the input at run-time. So foo(readline()) became foo(2) or foo("hello") which worked fine for JavaScript.



Around 2013/2014 I added more languages and used third-party service to evaluate code online, but it was very difficult to do stdin/stdout with the services I was using, so I stuck with the same silly find-and-replace for languages like Python, Ruby, and eventually C++, C#, etc.



Fast forward to today, I run the code in my own containers, but never updated the way stdin/stdout works because people have gotten used to the weird hack (some people have even posted in forums explaining how to get around it).



I know it is not best practice and it isn't helpful for someone learning a new language to see hacks like this, but the idea was for new programmers to not worry about reading input at all and just focus on writing the algorithm to solve the problem. One common complaint about coding challenge sites years ago was that new programmers would spend a lot of time just figuring out how to read from stdin or read lines from a file, so I wanted new coders to avoid this problem on Coderbyte.



I'll be updating the entire editor page soon along with the default code and stdin reading for languages. Hopefully then C++ programmers will enjoy using Coderbyte more :)







share|improve this answer










New contributor




Daniel Borowski is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.









share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer








edited 17 hours ago









Peter Mortensen

13.8k1987113




13.8k1987113






New contributor




Daniel Borowski is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.









answered 2 days ago









Daniel BorowskiDaniel Borowski

436123




436123




New contributor




Daniel Borowski is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.





New contributor





Daniel Borowski is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.






Daniel Borowski is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.








  • 13





    "[B]ut the idea was for new programmers to not worry about reading input at all and just focus on writing the algorithm to solve the problem" - and it didn't occur to you to, instead of writing something that resembles "real" code, just put a made up function name or an obvious placeholder in that spot? Genuinely curious.

    – Ruther Rendommeleigh
    yesterday











  • Suppose that the input is a string instead of a number, let's say "hello". You replace gets(stdin) with "hello" and use that as input to the function to see if the test passes. If my code is wrong and it only passes with the string "world" as input, I can just put a #define gets(string) "world" and every test will pass. Right?

    – ChatterOne
    yesterday






  • 21





    I genuinely didn't expect I was going to choose an answer other than my own when I posted this. Thank you for proving me wrong in such a great way. It's really a pleasure to see your answer.

    – bolov
    yesterday






  • 3





    Very interesting! I would recommend, if you want to keep this hack, that you replace the function call with something like TAKE_INPUT, then use your find-replace to insert #define TAKE_INPUT whatever_here at the top.

    – Draconis
    yesterday






  • 4





    We need more answers starting with "I'm the founder of x and also the guy who created this".

    – pipe
    22 hours ago














  • 13





    "[B]ut the idea was for new programmers to not worry about reading input at all and just focus on writing the algorithm to solve the problem" - and it didn't occur to you to, instead of writing something that resembles "real" code, just put a made up function name or an obvious placeholder in that spot? Genuinely curious.

    – Ruther Rendommeleigh
    yesterday











  • Suppose that the input is a string instead of a number, let's say "hello". You replace gets(stdin) with "hello" and use that as input to the function to see if the test passes. If my code is wrong and it only passes with the string "world" as input, I can just put a #define gets(string) "world" and every test will pass. Right?

    – ChatterOne
    yesterday






  • 21





    I genuinely didn't expect I was going to choose an answer other than my own when I posted this. Thank you for proving me wrong in such a great way. It's really a pleasure to see your answer.

    – bolov
    yesterday






  • 3





    Very interesting! I would recommend, if you want to keep this hack, that you replace the function call with something like TAKE_INPUT, then use your find-replace to insert #define TAKE_INPUT whatever_here at the top.

    – Draconis
    yesterday






  • 4





    We need more answers starting with "I'm the founder of x and also the guy who created this".

    – pipe
    22 hours ago








13




13





"[B]ut the idea was for new programmers to not worry about reading input at all and just focus on writing the algorithm to solve the problem" - and it didn't occur to you to, instead of writing something that resembles "real" code, just put a made up function name or an obvious placeholder in that spot? Genuinely curious.

– Ruther Rendommeleigh
yesterday





"[B]ut the idea was for new programmers to not worry about reading input at all and just focus on writing the algorithm to solve the problem" - and it didn't occur to you to, instead of writing something that resembles "real" code, just put a made up function name or an obvious placeholder in that spot? Genuinely curious.

– Ruther Rendommeleigh
yesterday













Suppose that the input is a string instead of a number, let's say "hello". You replace gets(stdin) with "hello" and use that as input to the function to see if the test passes. If my code is wrong and it only passes with the string "world" as input, I can just put a #define gets(string) "world" and every test will pass. Right?

– ChatterOne
yesterday





Suppose that the input is a string instead of a number, let's say "hello". You replace gets(stdin) with "hello" and use that as input to the function to see if the test passes. If my code is wrong and it only passes with the string "world" as input, I can just put a #define gets(string) "world" and every test will pass. Right?

– ChatterOne
yesterday




21




21





I genuinely didn't expect I was going to choose an answer other than my own when I posted this. Thank you for proving me wrong in such a great way. It's really a pleasure to see your answer.

– bolov
yesterday





I genuinely didn't expect I was going to choose an answer other than my own when I posted this. Thank you for proving me wrong in such a great way. It's really a pleasure to see your answer.

– bolov
yesterday




3




3





Very interesting! I would recommend, if you want to keep this hack, that you replace the function call with something like TAKE_INPUT, then use your find-replace to insert #define TAKE_INPUT whatever_here at the top.

– Draconis
yesterday





Very interesting! I would recommend, if you want to keep this hack, that you replace the function call with something like TAKE_INPUT, then use your find-replace to insert #define TAKE_INPUT whatever_here at the top.

– Draconis
yesterday




4




4





We need more answers starting with "I'm the founder of x and also the guy who created this".

– pipe
22 hours ago





We need more answers starting with "I'm the founder of x and also the guy who created this".

– pipe
22 hours ago













87














I am intrigued. So, time to put the investigation goggles on and since I don't have access to the compiler or compilation flags I need to get inventive. Also because nothing about this code makes sense it's not a bad idea question every assumption.



First let's check the actual type of gets. I have a little trick for that:



template <class> struct Name;

int main() {

Name<decltype(gets)> n;

// keep this function call here
cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));
return 0;

}


And that looks ... normal:




/tmp/613814454/Main.cpp:16:19: warning: 'gets' is deprecated [-Wdeprecated-declarations]
Name<decltype(gets)> n;
^
/usr/include/stdio.h:638:37: note: 'gets' has been explicitly marked deprecated here
extern char *gets (char *__s) __wur __attribute_deprecated__;
^
/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/sys/cdefs.h:254:51: note: expanded from macro '__attribute_deprecated__'
# define __attribute_deprecated__ __attribute__ ((__deprecated__))
^
/tmp/613814454/Main.cpp:16:26: error: implicit instantiation of undefined template 'Name<char *(char *)>'
Name<decltype(gets)> n;
^
/tmp/613814454/Main.cpp:12:25: note: template is declared here
template <class> struct Name;
^
1 warning and 1 error generated.



gets is marked as deprecated and has the signature char *(char *). But then how is FirstFactorial(gets(stdin)); compiling?



Let's try something else:



int main() { 
Name<decltype(gets(stdin))> n;

// keep this function call here
cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));
return 0;

}


Which gives us:




/tmp/286775780/Main.cpp:15:21: error: implicit instantiation of undefined template 'Name<int>'
Name<decltype(8)> n;
^



Finally we are getting something: decltype(8). So the entire gets(stdin) was textually replaced with the input (8).



And the things get weirder. The compiler error continues:




/tmp/596773533/Main.cpp:18:26: error: no matching function for call to 'gets'
cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));
^~~~
/usr/include/stdio.h:638:14: note: candidate function not viable: no known conversion from 'struct _IO_FILE *' to 'char *' for 1st argument
extern char *gets (char *__s) __wur __attribute_deprecated__;



So now we get the expected error for cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));



I checked for a macro and since #undef gets seems to do nothing it looks like it isn't a macro.



But



std::integral_constant<int, gets(stdin)> n;


It compiles.



But



std::integral_constant<int, gets(stdin)> n;    // OK
std::integral_constant<int, gets(stdin)> n2; // ERROR wtf??


Doesn't with the expected error at the n2 line.



And again, almost any modification to main makes the line cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin)); spit out the expected error.



Moreover the stdin actually seems to be empty.



So I can only conclude and speculate they have a little program that parses the source and tries (poorly) to replace gets(stdin) with the test case input value before actually feeding it into the compiler. If anybody has a better theory or actually knows what they are doing please share!



This is obviously a very bad practice. While researching this I found there is at least a question here (example) about this and because people have no idea that there is a site out there who does this their answer is "don't use gets use ... instead" which is indeed a good advice but only confuses the OP more since any attempt at a valid read from stdin will fail on this site.





TLDR



gets(stdin) is invalid C++. It's a gimmick this particular site uses (for what reasons I cannot figure out). If you want to continue to submit on the site (I am neither endorsing it neither not endorsing it) you have to use this construct that otherwise would not make sense, but be aware that it is brittle. Almost any modifications to main will spit out an error. Outside of this site use normal input reading methods.






share|improve this answer





















  • 24





    I'm genuinely amazed. Maybe this Q/A can be a canonical post on why not to learn from coding challenge sites.

    – alter igel
    2 days ago






  • 1





    The "8" comes from the left box at the bottom of the screen. Try typing a text string in there (I tried "maplemaple") and see the result...

    – Stobor
    2 days ago






  • 25





    Something really evil is happening, and I think it's at the level of text replacement in the source code outside of the compiler. Try this: std::cout << "gets(stdin)"; and the output is 8 (or whatever you type into the 'input' field. This is a disgraceful abuse of the language.

    – alter igel
    2 days ago








  • 11





    @Stobor note the quotes around "gets(stdin)". That's a string literal that even the preprocessor wouldn't touch

    – alter igel
    2 days ago






  • 1





    To quote James Kirk: "This is damn peculiar."

    – ApproachingDarknessFish
    yesterday
















87














I am intrigued. So, time to put the investigation goggles on and since I don't have access to the compiler or compilation flags I need to get inventive. Also because nothing about this code makes sense it's not a bad idea question every assumption.



First let's check the actual type of gets. I have a little trick for that:



template <class> struct Name;

int main() {

Name<decltype(gets)> n;

// keep this function call here
cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));
return 0;

}


And that looks ... normal:




/tmp/613814454/Main.cpp:16:19: warning: 'gets' is deprecated [-Wdeprecated-declarations]
Name<decltype(gets)> n;
^
/usr/include/stdio.h:638:37: note: 'gets' has been explicitly marked deprecated here
extern char *gets (char *__s) __wur __attribute_deprecated__;
^
/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/sys/cdefs.h:254:51: note: expanded from macro '__attribute_deprecated__'
# define __attribute_deprecated__ __attribute__ ((__deprecated__))
^
/tmp/613814454/Main.cpp:16:26: error: implicit instantiation of undefined template 'Name<char *(char *)>'
Name<decltype(gets)> n;
^
/tmp/613814454/Main.cpp:12:25: note: template is declared here
template <class> struct Name;
^
1 warning and 1 error generated.



gets is marked as deprecated and has the signature char *(char *). But then how is FirstFactorial(gets(stdin)); compiling?



Let's try something else:



int main() { 
Name<decltype(gets(stdin))> n;

// keep this function call here
cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));
return 0;

}


Which gives us:




/tmp/286775780/Main.cpp:15:21: error: implicit instantiation of undefined template 'Name<int>'
Name<decltype(8)> n;
^



Finally we are getting something: decltype(8). So the entire gets(stdin) was textually replaced with the input (8).



And the things get weirder. The compiler error continues:




/tmp/596773533/Main.cpp:18:26: error: no matching function for call to 'gets'
cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));
^~~~
/usr/include/stdio.h:638:14: note: candidate function not viable: no known conversion from 'struct _IO_FILE *' to 'char *' for 1st argument
extern char *gets (char *__s) __wur __attribute_deprecated__;



So now we get the expected error for cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));



I checked for a macro and since #undef gets seems to do nothing it looks like it isn't a macro.



But



std::integral_constant<int, gets(stdin)> n;


It compiles.



But



std::integral_constant<int, gets(stdin)> n;    // OK
std::integral_constant<int, gets(stdin)> n2; // ERROR wtf??


Doesn't with the expected error at the n2 line.



And again, almost any modification to main makes the line cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin)); spit out the expected error.



Moreover the stdin actually seems to be empty.



So I can only conclude and speculate they have a little program that parses the source and tries (poorly) to replace gets(stdin) with the test case input value before actually feeding it into the compiler. If anybody has a better theory or actually knows what they are doing please share!



This is obviously a very bad practice. While researching this I found there is at least a question here (example) about this and because people have no idea that there is a site out there who does this their answer is "don't use gets use ... instead" which is indeed a good advice but only confuses the OP more since any attempt at a valid read from stdin will fail on this site.





TLDR



gets(stdin) is invalid C++. It's a gimmick this particular site uses (for what reasons I cannot figure out). If you want to continue to submit on the site (I am neither endorsing it neither not endorsing it) you have to use this construct that otherwise would not make sense, but be aware that it is brittle. Almost any modifications to main will spit out an error. Outside of this site use normal input reading methods.






share|improve this answer





















  • 24





    I'm genuinely amazed. Maybe this Q/A can be a canonical post on why not to learn from coding challenge sites.

    – alter igel
    2 days ago






  • 1





    The "8" comes from the left box at the bottom of the screen. Try typing a text string in there (I tried "maplemaple") and see the result...

    – Stobor
    2 days ago






  • 25





    Something really evil is happening, and I think it's at the level of text replacement in the source code outside of the compiler. Try this: std::cout << "gets(stdin)"; and the output is 8 (or whatever you type into the 'input' field. This is a disgraceful abuse of the language.

    – alter igel
    2 days ago








  • 11





    @Stobor note the quotes around "gets(stdin)". That's a string literal that even the preprocessor wouldn't touch

    – alter igel
    2 days ago






  • 1





    To quote James Kirk: "This is damn peculiar."

    – ApproachingDarknessFish
    yesterday














87












87








87







I am intrigued. So, time to put the investigation goggles on and since I don't have access to the compiler or compilation flags I need to get inventive. Also because nothing about this code makes sense it's not a bad idea question every assumption.



First let's check the actual type of gets. I have a little trick for that:



template <class> struct Name;

int main() {

Name<decltype(gets)> n;

// keep this function call here
cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));
return 0;

}


And that looks ... normal:




/tmp/613814454/Main.cpp:16:19: warning: 'gets' is deprecated [-Wdeprecated-declarations]
Name<decltype(gets)> n;
^
/usr/include/stdio.h:638:37: note: 'gets' has been explicitly marked deprecated here
extern char *gets (char *__s) __wur __attribute_deprecated__;
^
/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/sys/cdefs.h:254:51: note: expanded from macro '__attribute_deprecated__'
# define __attribute_deprecated__ __attribute__ ((__deprecated__))
^
/tmp/613814454/Main.cpp:16:26: error: implicit instantiation of undefined template 'Name<char *(char *)>'
Name<decltype(gets)> n;
^
/tmp/613814454/Main.cpp:12:25: note: template is declared here
template <class> struct Name;
^
1 warning and 1 error generated.



gets is marked as deprecated and has the signature char *(char *). But then how is FirstFactorial(gets(stdin)); compiling?



Let's try something else:



int main() { 
Name<decltype(gets(stdin))> n;

// keep this function call here
cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));
return 0;

}


Which gives us:




/tmp/286775780/Main.cpp:15:21: error: implicit instantiation of undefined template 'Name<int>'
Name<decltype(8)> n;
^



Finally we are getting something: decltype(8). So the entire gets(stdin) was textually replaced with the input (8).



And the things get weirder. The compiler error continues:




/tmp/596773533/Main.cpp:18:26: error: no matching function for call to 'gets'
cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));
^~~~
/usr/include/stdio.h:638:14: note: candidate function not viable: no known conversion from 'struct _IO_FILE *' to 'char *' for 1st argument
extern char *gets (char *__s) __wur __attribute_deprecated__;



So now we get the expected error for cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));



I checked for a macro and since #undef gets seems to do nothing it looks like it isn't a macro.



But



std::integral_constant<int, gets(stdin)> n;


It compiles.



But



std::integral_constant<int, gets(stdin)> n;    // OK
std::integral_constant<int, gets(stdin)> n2; // ERROR wtf??


Doesn't with the expected error at the n2 line.



And again, almost any modification to main makes the line cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin)); spit out the expected error.



Moreover the stdin actually seems to be empty.



So I can only conclude and speculate they have a little program that parses the source and tries (poorly) to replace gets(stdin) with the test case input value before actually feeding it into the compiler. If anybody has a better theory or actually knows what they are doing please share!



This is obviously a very bad practice. While researching this I found there is at least a question here (example) about this and because people have no idea that there is a site out there who does this their answer is "don't use gets use ... instead" which is indeed a good advice but only confuses the OP more since any attempt at a valid read from stdin will fail on this site.





TLDR



gets(stdin) is invalid C++. It's a gimmick this particular site uses (for what reasons I cannot figure out). If you want to continue to submit on the site (I am neither endorsing it neither not endorsing it) you have to use this construct that otherwise would not make sense, but be aware that it is brittle. Almost any modifications to main will spit out an error. Outside of this site use normal input reading methods.






share|improve this answer















I am intrigued. So, time to put the investigation goggles on and since I don't have access to the compiler or compilation flags I need to get inventive. Also because nothing about this code makes sense it's not a bad idea question every assumption.



First let's check the actual type of gets. I have a little trick for that:



template <class> struct Name;

int main() {

Name<decltype(gets)> n;

// keep this function call here
cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));
return 0;

}


And that looks ... normal:




/tmp/613814454/Main.cpp:16:19: warning: 'gets' is deprecated [-Wdeprecated-declarations]
Name<decltype(gets)> n;
^
/usr/include/stdio.h:638:37: note: 'gets' has been explicitly marked deprecated here
extern char *gets (char *__s) __wur __attribute_deprecated__;
^
/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/sys/cdefs.h:254:51: note: expanded from macro '__attribute_deprecated__'
# define __attribute_deprecated__ __attribute__ ((__deprecated__))
^
/tmp/613814454/Main.cpp:16:26: error: implicit instantiation of undefined template 'Name<char *(char *)>'
Name<decltype(gets)> n;
^
/tmp/613814454/Main.cpp:12:25: note: template is declared here
template <class> struct Name;
^
1 warning and 1 error generated.



gets is marked as deprecated and has the signature char *(char *). But then how is FirstFactorial(gets(stdin)); compiling?



Let's try something else:



int main() { 
Name<decltype(gets(stdin))> n;

// keep this function call here
cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));
return 0;

}


Which gives us:




/tmp/286775780/Main.cpp:15:21: error: implicit instantiation of undefined template 'Name<int>'
Name<decltype(8)> n;
^



Finally we are getting something: decltype(8). So the entire gets(stdin) was textually replaced with the input (8).



And the things get weirder. The compiler error continues:




/tmp/596773533/Main.cpp:18:26: error: no matching function for call to 'gets'
cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));
^~~~
/usr/include/stdio.h:638:14: note: candidate function not viable: no known conversion from 'struct _IO_FILE *' to 'char *' for 1st argument
extern char *gets (char *__s) __wur __attribute_deprecated__;



So now we get the expected error for cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin));



I checked for a macro and since #undef gets seems to do nothing it looks like it isn't a macro.



But



std::integral_constant<int, gets(stdin)> n;


It compiles.



But



std::integral_constant<int, gets(stdin)> n;    // OK
std::integral_constant<int, gets(stdin)> n2; // ERROR wtf??


Doesn't with the expected error at the n2 line.



And again, almost any modification to main makes the line cout << FirstFactorial(gets(stdin)); spit out the expected error.



Moreover the stdin actually seems to be empty.



So I can only conclude and speculate they have a little program that parses the source and tries (poorly) to replace gets(stdin) with the test case input value before actually feeding it into the compiler. If anybody has a better theory or actually knows what they are doing please share!



This is obviously a very bad practice. While researching this I found there is at least a question here (example) about this and because people have no idea that there is a site out there who does this their answer is "don't use gets use ... instead" which is indeed a good advice but only confuses the OP more since any attempt at a valid read from stdin will fail on this site.





TLDR



gets(stdin) is invalid C++. It's a gimmick this particular site uses (for what reasons I cannot figure out). If you want to continue to submit on the site (I am neither endorsing it neither not endorsing it) you have to use this construct that otherwise would not make sense, but be aware that it is brittle. Almost any modifications to main will spit out an error. Outside of this site use normal input reading methods.







share|improve this answer














share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer








edited 2 days ago









scohe001

8,15212442




8,15212442










answered 2 days ago









bolovbolov

32.6k676140




32.6k676140








  • 24





    I'm genuinely amazed. Maybe this Q/A can be a canonical post on why not to learn from coding challenge sites.

    – alter igel
    2 days ago






  • 1





    The "8" comes from the left box at the bottom of the screen. Try typing a text string in there (I tried "maplemaple") and see the result...

    – Stobor
    2 days ago






  • 25





    Something really evil is happening, and I think it's at the level of text replacement in the source code outside of the compiler. Try this: std::cout << "gets(stdin)"; and the output is 8 (or whatever you type into the 'input' field. This is a disgraceful abuse of the language.

    – alter igel
    2 days ago








  • 11





    @Stobor note the quotes around "gets(stdin)". That's a string literal that even the preprocessor wouldn't touch

    – alter igel
    2 days ago






  • 1





    To quote James Kirk: "This is damn peculiar."

    – ApproachingDarknessFish
    yesterday














  • 24





    I'm genuinely amazed. Maybe this Q/A can be a canonical post on why not to learn from coding challenge sites.

    – alter igel
    2 days ago






  • 1





    The "8" comes from the left box at the bottom of the screen. Try typing a text string in there (I tried "maplemaple") and see the result...

    – Stobor
    2 days ago






  • 25





    Something really evil is happening, and I think it's at the level of text replacement in the source code outside of the compiler. Try this: std::cout << "gets(stdin)"; and the output is 8 (or whatever you type into the 'input' field. This is a disgraceful abuse of the language.

    – alter igel
    2 days ago








  • 11





    @Stobor note the quotes around "gets(stdin)". That's a string literal that even the preprocessor wouldn't touch

    – alter igel
    2 days ago






  • 1





    To quote James Kirk: "This is damn peculiar."

    – ApproachingDarknessFish
    yesterday








24




24





I'm genuinely amazed. Maybe this Q/A can be a canonical post on why not to learn from coding challenge sites.

– alter igel
2 days ago





I'm genuinely amazed. Maybe this Q/A can be a canonical post on why not to learn from coding challenge sites.

– alter igel
2 days ago




1




1





The "8" comes from the left box at the bottom of the screen. Try typing a text string in there (I tried "maplemaple") and see the result...

– Stobor
2 days ago





The "8" comes from the left box at the bottom of the screen. Try typing a text string in there (I tried "maplemaple") and see the result...

– Stobor
2 days ago




25




25





Something really evil is happening, and I think it's at the level of text replacement in the source code outside of the compiler. Try this: std::cout << "gets(stdin)"; and the output is 8 (or whatever you type into the 'input' field. This is a disgraceful abuse of the language.

– alter igel
2 days ago







Something really evil is happening, and I think it's at the level of text replacement in the source code outside of the compiler. Try this: std::cout << "gets(stdin)"; and the output is 8 (or whatever you type into the 'input' field. This is a disgraceful abuse of the language.

– alter igel
2 days ago






11




11





@Stobor note the quotes around "gets(stdin)". That's a string literal that even the preprocessor wouldn't touch

– alter igel
2 days ago





@Stobor note the quotes around "gets(stdin)". That's a string literal that even the preprocessor wouldn't touch

– alter igel
2 days ago




1




1





To quote James Kirk: "This is damn peculiar."

– ApproachingDarknessFish
yesterday





To quote James Kirk: "This is damn peculiar."

– ApproachingDarknessFish
yesterday











49














I tried the following addition to main in the Coderbyte editor:



std::cout << "gets(stdin)";


Where the mysterious and enigmatic snippet gets(stdin) appears inside a string literal. This shouldn't possibly be transformed by anything, not even the preprocessor, and any C++ programmer should expect this code to print the exact string gets(stdin) to the standard output. And yet we see the following output, when compiled and run on coderbyte:



8


Where the value 8 is taken straight from the convenient 'input' field under the editor.



Magic code



From this, it's clear that this online editor is performing blind find-and-replace operations on the source code, substitution appearances of gets(stdin) with the user's 'input'. I would personally call this a misuse of the language that's worse than careless preprocessor macros.



In the context of an online coding challenge website, I'm worried by this because it teaches unconventional, non-standard, meaningless, and at least unsafe practices like gets(stdin), and in a manner that can't be repeated on other platforms.



I'm sure it can't be this hard to just use std::cin and just stream input to a program.






share|improve this answer


























  • and it's not even a blind "find and replace" because sometimes it replaces it sometimes it does not.

    – bolov
    2 days ago






  • 3





    @bolov could it be just the first occurrence of gets(stdin) that is replaced? I meant 'blind' in the sense that it appears to be unaware of the language's syntax or grammar.

    – alter igel
    2 days ago











  • yes, you are right. It replaces the first occurence. I tried putting one before main and that's what I got indeed.

    – bolov
    2 days ago






  • 1





    Further research suggests that that site does it for all languages, not just C++ - python/ruby it uses the function call ("raw_input()" or "STDIN.gets") which would typically return a string from stdin, but ends up doing a string substitution of that string instead. I guess finding a regex match for the getline function was too hard, so they went with gets(stdin) for C/C++.

    – Stobor
    2 days ago






  • 3





    @Stobor dang, you're right. I can confirm this happens for Java too, the line System.out.print(FirstFactorial(s.nextLine()9)); prints 89 even when s is undefined.

    – alter igel
    2 days ago


















49














I tried the following addition to main in the Coderbyte editor:



std::cout << "gets(stdin)";


Where the mysterious and enigmatic snippet gets(stdin) appears inside a string literal. This shouldn't possibly be transformed by anything, not even the preprocessor, and any C++ programmer should expect this code to print the exact string gets(stdin) to the standard output. And yet we see the following output, when compiled and run on coderbyte:



8


Where the value 8 is taken straight from the convenient 'input' field under the editor.



Magic code



From this, it's clear that this online editor is performing blind find-and-replace operations on the source code, substitution appearances of gets(stdin) with the user's 'input'. I would personally call this a misuse of the language that's worse than careless preprocessor macros.



In the context of an online coding challenge website, I'm worried by this because it teaches unconventional, non-standard, meaningless, and at least unsafe practices like gets(stdin), and in a manner that can't be repeated on other platforms.



I'm sure it can't be this hard to just use std::cin and just stream input to a program.






share|improve this answer


























  • and it's not even a blind "find and replace" because sometimes it replaces it sometimes it does not.

    – bolov
    2 days ago






  • 3





    @bolov could it be just the first occurrence of gets(stdin) that is replaced? I meant 'blind' in the sense that it appears to be unaware of the language's syntax or grammar.

    – alter igel
    2 days ago











  • yes, you are right. It replaces the first occurence. I tried putting one before main and that's what I got indeed.

    – bolov
    2 days ago






  • 1





    Further research suggests that that site does it for all languages, not just C++ - python/ruby it uses the function call ("raw_input()" or "STDIN.gets") which would typically return a string from stdin, but ends up doing a string substitution of that string instead. I guess finding a regex match for the getline function was too hard, so they went with gets(stdin) for C/C++.

    – Stobor
    2 days ago






  • 3





    @Stobor dang, you're right. I can confirm this happens for Java too, the line System.out.print(FirstFactorial(s.nextLine()9)); prints 89 even when s is undefined.

    – alter igel
    2 days ago
















49












49








49







I tried the following addition to main in the Coderbyte editor:



std::cout << "gets(stdin)";


Where the mysterious and enigmatic snippet gets(stdin) appears inside a string literal. This shouldn't possibly be transformed by anything, not even the preprocessor, and any C++ programmer should expect this code to print the exact string gets(stdin) to the standard output. And yet we see the following output, when compiled and run on coderbyte:



8


Where the value 8 is taken straight from the convenient 'input' field under the editor.



Magic code



From this, it's clear that this online editor is performing blind find-and-replace operations on the source code, substitution appearances of gets(stdin) with the user's 'input'. I would personally call this a misuse of the language that's worse than careless preprocessor macros.



In the context of an online coding challenge website, I'm worried by this because it teaches unconventional, non-standard, meaningless, and at least unsafe practices like gets(stdin), and in a manner that can't be repeated on other platforms.



I'm sure it can't be this hard to just use std::cin and just stream input to a program.






share|improve this answer















I tried the following addition to main in the Coderbyte editor:



std::cout << "gets(stdin)";


Where the mysterious and enigmatic snippet gets(stdin) appears inside a string literal. This shouldn't possibly be transformed by anything, not even the preprocessor, and any C++ programmer should expect this code to print the exact string gets(stdin) to the standard output. And yet we see the following output, when compiled and run on coderbyte:



8


Where the value 8 is taken straight from the convenient 'input' field under the editor.



Magic code



From this, it's clear that this online editor is performing blind find-and-replace operations on the source code, substitution appearances of gets(stdin) with the user's 'input'. I would personally call this a misuse of the language that's worse than careless preprocessor macros.



In the context of an online coding challenge website, I'm worried by this because it teaches unconventional, non-standard, meaningless, and at least unsafe practices like gets(stdin), and in a manner that can't be repeated on other platforms.



I'm sure it can't be this hard to just use std::cin and just stream input to a program.







share|improve this answer














share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer








edited 17 hours ago









Peter Mortensen

13.8k1987113




13.8k1987113










answered 2 days ago









alter igelalter igel

3,28811230




3,28811230













  • and it's not even a blind "find and replace" because sometimes it replaces it sometimes it does not.

    – bolov
    2 days ago






  • 3





    @bolov could it be just the first occurrence of gets(stdin) that is replaced? I meant 'blind' in the sense that it appears to be unaware of the language's syntax or grammar.

    – alter igel
    2 days ago











  • yes, you are right. It replaces the first occurence. I tried putting one before main and that's what I got indeed.

    – bolov
    2 days ago






  • 1





    Further research suggests that that site does it for all languages, not just C++ - python/ruby it uses the function call ("raw_input()" or "STDIN.gets") which would typically return a string from stdin, but ends up doing a string substitution of that string instead. I guess finding a regex match for the getline function was too hard, so they went with gets(stdin) for C/C++.

    – Stobor
    2 days ago






  • 3





    @Stobor dang, you're right. I can confirm this happens for Java too, the line System.out.print(FirstFactorial(s.nextLine()9)); prints 89 even when s is undefined.

    – alter igel
    2 days ago





















  • and it's not even a blind "find and replace" because sometimes it replaces it sometimes it does not.

    – bolov
    2 days ago






  • 3





    @bolov could it be just the first occurrence of gets(stdin) that is replaced? I meant 'blind' in the sense that it appears to be unaware of the language's syntax or grammar.

    – alter igel
    2 days ago











  • yes, you are right. It replaces the first occurence. I tried putting one before main and that's what I got indeed.

    – bolov
    2 days ago






  • 1





    Further research suggests that that site does it for all languages, not just C++ - python/ruby it uses the function call ("raw_input()" or "STDIN.gets") which would typically return a string from stdin, but ends up doing a string substitution of that string instead. I guess finding a regex match for the getline function was too hard, so they went with gets(stdin) for C/C++.

    – Stobor
    2 days ago






  • 3





    @Stobor dang, you're right. I can confirm this happens for Java too, the line System.out.print(FirstFactorial(s.nextLine()9)); prints 89 even when s is undefined.

    – alter igel
    2 days ago



















and it's not even a blind "find and replace" because sometimes it replaces it sometimes it does not.

– bolov
2 days ago





and it's not even a blind "find and replace" because sometimes it replaces it sometimes it does not.

– bolov
2 days ago




3




3





@bolov could it be just the first occurrence of gets(stdin) that is replaced? I meant 'blind' in the sense that it appears to be unaware of the language's syntax or grammar.

– alter igel
2 days ago





@bolov could it be just the first occurrence of gets(stdin) that is replaced? I meant 'blind' in the sense that it appears to be unaware of the language's syntax or grammar.

– alter igel
2 days ago













yes, you are right. It replaces the first occurence. I tried putting one before main and that's what I got indeed.

– bolov
2 days ago





yes, you are right. It replaces the first occurence. I tried putting one before main and that's what I got indeed.

– bolov
2 days ago




1




1





Further research suggests that that site does it for all languages, not just C++ - python/ruby it uses the function call ("raw_input()" or "STDIN.gets") which would typically return a string from stdin, but ends up doing a string substitution of that string instead. I guess finding a regex match for the getline function was too hard, so they went with gets(stdin) for C/C++.

– Stobor
2 days ago





Further research suggests that that site does it for all languages, not just C++ - python/ruby it uses the function call ("raw_input()" or "STDIN.gets") which would typically return a string from stdin, but ends up doing a string substitution of that string instead. I guess finding a regex match for the getline function was too hard, so they went with gets(stdin) for C/C++.

– Stobor
2 days ago




3




3





@Stobor dang, you're right. I can confirm this happens for Java too, the line System.out.print(FirstFactorial(s.nextLine()9)); prints 89 even when s is undefined.

– alter igel
2 days ago







@Stobor dang, you're right. I can confirm this happens for Java too, the line System.out.print(FirstFactorial(s.nextLine()9)); prints 89 even when s is undefined.

– alter igel
2 days ago




















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