Composing Python built-ins to make text

A friend of mine sent me an ominous message about programming:

Don’t run this in the Python repl

print(chr(sum(range(ord(min(str(not())))))))

I figured that somehow this piece of code would crash the interpreter or something but, after disregarding their suggestion, I was delighted to see it print

ඞ

How does this string of incomprehensibly nested function compositions create anything at all?

not(). This is not a function, but rather Python’s not operator on an empty tuple. Empty tuples are considered to be false in a boolean sense, so the output of this is the negation, True

str(True). Cast the boolean to a string value, resulting in "True".

min("True"). This one is a bit more complex. min searches through each character in the string, and returns the one with the smallest Unicode Codepoint value. Capital letters come before lowercase letters, thus the result is "T"

ord("T") is fairly simple, it takes a character and returns the codepoint value as an integer, which happens to be 84.

sum(range(84)) I’ve lumped these two together because they work as a unit. This finds the sum of all integers between 0 and 83 (inclusive), which is 3486.

chr(3486) takes an integer codepoint and converts it back into a character which happens to be ඞ.

Hello World

The ඞ example above got me thinking: just what can be made by composing built-in functions?

Anyhow, I thought this idea was cool enough that I made a hello world with it.

print(
    chr(max(range(max(range(ord(max(str(complex(int()))))))))),
    next(reversed(str(bool()))),
    chr(max(range(max(range(max(range(ord(max(oct(int())))))))))),
    chr(max(range(max(range(max(range(ord(max(oct(int())))))))))),
    max(oct(int())),
    min(str(slice(int()))),
    chr(max(range(ord(max(hex(int())))))),
    max(oct(int())),
    max(str(range(int()))),
    chr(max(range(max(range(max(range(ord(max(oct(int())))))))))),
    chr(max(range(max(range(max(range(max(range(max(range(max(range(ord(max(str(complex(int())))))))))))))))))
)

I won’t be explaining how this one works.

So if you want to expand upon this, here are the “rules” for creating one of these expressions:

• The expression must begin with a function call.
• Each function call must either take one parameter or no parameters.
• Functions can only be called with other function calls as the parameter.
• The not operator on an empty tuple not() is to be considered a function call.
• Functions can not be used in such a way that creates a final output which is dependant on the environment, interpreter, or other temporary state.

Here’s a table of the functions which should follow those rules (depending on how you use them)

Hello World 2

This all got me thinking: this would be a cool way to obfuscate code. In the previous example, the string “Hello World” was constructed, but what about a program which prints hello world?

So I wrote a simple python program

print("Hello World!")

Then, each character is transformed into the wacky composed function form and concatenated together. Finally, the resulting string is wrapped into an exec expression to run the code.

exec(
chr(max(range(max(range(ord(max(str(range(int()))))))))) +\
max(str(range(int()))) +\
chr(max(range(ord(max(str(complex(int()))))))) +\
chr(max(range(ord(max(oct(int())))))) +\
max(str(type(int()))) +\
min(str(set())) +\
chr(max(range(max(range(sum(range(len(bin(ord(max(str(not())))))))))))) +\
chr(max(range(max(range(max(range(max(range(max(range(max(range(sum(range(len(str(type(int())))))))))))))))))) +\
next(reversed(str(bool()))) +\
chr(max(range(max(range(max(range(ord(max(oct(int())))))))))) +\
chr(max(range(max(range(max(range(ord(max(oct(int())))))))))) +\
max(oct(int())) +\
min(str(type(int()))) +\
chr(max(range(max(range(max(range(max(range(ord(min(str(list())))))))))))) +\
max(oct(int())) +\
max(str(range(int()))) +\
chr(max(range(max(range(max(range(ord(max(oct(int())))))))))) +\
chr(max(range(ord(next(reversed(str(bool()))))))) +\
chr(len(str(slice(sum(range(sum(range(sum(range(ord(min(str(not()))))))))))))) +\
chr(max(range(max(range(sum(range(len(bin(ord(max(str(not())))))))))))) +\
next(reversed(str(set()))))