Write a program that uses all printable non-alphanumeric ASCII symbols

Question

In particular, use each of these symbols at least once in your source code:

! " # $ % & ' () * + , - .  / : ; < = > ? @ [ \ ] ^ _ ` { | } ~

Symbols inside comments, string literals, regexps (or any other kinds of literals etc.) don't count (but their delimiters such as /**/ or "" do count).

The program should not perform any action. It just has to compile and do nothing when run.

If for some reason some of the symbols cannot be used in the language of your choice, explain that rigorously (what and why must be excluded).

Update: A few answers used symbols withing regular expressions. I'd consider this a bit problematic, it's the same thing as putting them into string literals or comments (that's why I put etc. in that requirement). Please try without this. I also updated the requirement above.

Update: Shortest code wins (tagged as code-golf). As suggested, we'll most likely need some tie-breaker criteria. I suggest that if there is a tie, the winning one is the one in which the ASCII symbols appear as much ordered as possible. Formally: Filter out the first occurrence of each of the listed symbols from a program. This will result in a permutation on the listed symbols. The program with less inversion number of its permutation wins.

Update: I'd be happy to see some/more solutions in regular/mainstream languages, such as C(++), Java, Scala, Haskell, etc.

Answer 1

Brainf*ck, 32 characters

!"#$%&'()*+.-/:;>=<?@[\]^_`{|}~,

Prints a smiley face (if your console can output ASCII symbol 1)

Yay, a Branf*ck solution that beats Golfscript! :P

If you insist on no output, just exchange the + and . :

!"#$%&'()*.+-/:;>=<?@[\]^_`{|}~,

Answer 2

Perl, 32 chars

no hiding symbols in comments, string literals, or regular expressions. uses all symbols precisely once.

$`<@"^[(\{_},)]/+-~%'?&|:!*.=>;#

Description

i have tried to indicate operator precedence with indentation: the right-most expressions are evaluated before those to their left

        $`            # scalar variable $ named `
      <               # numeric less-than inequality <
        @"            # array variable @ named "
                      #   (array evaluated in scalar context)
    ^                 # bitwise XOR ^
        [(\{_},)]     # array reference [] 
                      #   containing array () 
                      #     containing reference \
                      #       to anonymous hash reference {}
                      #         with one key "_" 
                      #           and no value (nothing following comma ,)
                      #             (reference evaluated in scalar context)
      /               # numeric division /
        +-~%'         # unary addition +
                      #   and unary negation -
                      #     and bitwise complement ~
                      #       on hash variable % named '
                      #         (hash evaluated in scalar context)
  ?                   # ternary conditional operator ?:
    &|                # code reference variable & named |
  :                   # ternary conditional operator ?:
    ! *.              # logical negation !
                      #   on typeglob variable * named .
                      #     (typeglob evaluated in scalar context)
  =>                  # fat comma => for compound expression
                      #   (evaluates LHS as string, RHS is empty)
;                     # end of expression ;
#                     # start of comment #

Answer 3

Whitespace, 32

!"#$%&'()*+,-./:;<=>?@[\]^_`{|}~

all non whitespace characters are ignored, so this is actually an empty program

Answer 4

Python 65

a=lambda x:0.
@a#
def _():{[`'"$?'`,]};a<a!=a+a%a&a^a-a*a|~a>a/a\

I used the characters ? and $ inside a string literal. These characters are not legal outside string literals or comments.

Answer 5

PHP, 32 chars

Probably a bit of a troll, this PHP program is also a QUINE, and uses all symbols in the exact order they are listed.

!"#$%&'()*+,-./:;<=>?@[\]^_`{|}~

Executed from the command line, the output will simply be the contents of the file, as there is no <?php to invoke the interpretor.

$ cat > a.php
!"#$%&'()*+,-./:;<=>?@[\]^_`{|}~

$ php a.php
!"#$%&'()*+,-./:;<=>?@[\]^_`{|}~

Answer 6

Perl 6 (43 chars)

Let's define a infix operator with a rather unusual name:

sub infix:<!"#$%&'()*+,-./:;=?@[]^_´\|~>{}

It's not a literal nor a literal in a RE or anything hidden in a comment. You don't believe me? Running the following program will output "2":

sub infix:<!"#$%&'()*+,-./:;=?@[]^_´\|~>($a, $b){ $a + $b }
say 1 !"#$%&'()*+,-./:;=?@[]^_´\|~ 1;

But I'm quite sure you nitpickers will extend the rules further to exclude redefinition of the language itself to make us perl lubbers unhappy. :(

Answer 7

Haskell, 53

a@""#%&*+/?^b|a'<-a!!0=(\_->a`b`[]);main=do{print$1}

We can make this a bit shorter

45

a'@""#%&*+/?!<|^b=(\_->1`b`[]);main=do{main}

however this program doesn't terminate, and uses more characters ('!','<','|') in the newly-defined infix.

Answer 8

k (33 chars)

Very easy in k. Unfortunately " must be paired.

(@:'!""#$%&*+-\./;<=>?^_{}[`]|,~)

Answer 9

J, 33 characters

''&][?!"$>{}:<;,|^~*/\%+`-@.#(=_)

' needs to be doubled to avoid syntax errors.

My first answer was missing some symbols.

Answer 10

GolfScript (33 chars)

{!""$%&()*+,-./<=>?@[\]^_`|~};:'#

" has to be paired. It took a bit of trial and error to get it to output nothing - most other positions of the :' result in some output.

Answer 11

C, 48 chars

Kind of cheating.

#define _ ~''*+,-./:<=>?[]`|\
@%^$&!
main(){"";}

Answer 12

Postscript - 32 chars

{!"#$&'()*+,-./:;=<>?@[\]^_`|~}%

Results in an object on the stack, but otherwise has no effects. Postscript allows almost any char in an identifier except for <>()[]{}/ which are special syntax forms and % which introduces a comment. The program is tokenized as

{                  % start a procedure object
!"#$&'             % an identifier
()                 % an empty string
*+,-.              % an identifier
/:;=               % a symbol
<>                 % an empty hex string
?@                 % an identifier
[\]                % an array
^_`~|              % an identifier
}                  % close the procedure object
%                  % a comment

Answer 13

Tcl 37 chars

set {!#$%&'()*+,-./:<=>?@[]^\_`|~} ""

Defines a variable !#$%&'()*+,-./:<=>?@[]^\_`|~ with an empty string

Answer 14

C: 83 56 characters

#undef a
_;main($){$/=-+~!0|0^0%1,1<.0>0?'`':*&"@"[0];}\

At-signs and backticks are not a part of the allowed C-syntax, so I have put them between quotation marks.

Answer 15

C# (91 characters)

#define a 
class a{static int @Main(){return(char)1.1*""[0]/1%1-1+1!=1?1:~1^1>>1<<1&1+'\0';}}

As far as I know, The $ character is not a valid character outside string literals, so I didn't use it in my answer.

EDIT : Thanks to Peter Taylor, I shortened the code.

Answer 16

PowerShell (52 characters)

$_+=(@(1.1,1)[0]-1)*1/1%'1'::ToInt|&{!"">~\1}<#^#>`;

I had to put the ^ character as a string literal because as far as I know, the ^ character is not a legal PowerShell character outside string literals. Correct me if I am wrong.

The only way I have found to fit in the : character is to use the :: operator to make a call to a static method.

Answer 17

Scheme, 41 characters

(define !$%&*+,-./:<=>?@[\]^_`{|}~ "#'");

This takes advantage of Scheme's incredible tolerance for characters in variable names. In this program I create a variable with the name !$%&*+,-./:<=>?@[]^_`{|}~ which Scheme happily accepts.

Answer 18

Smalltalk (Squeak 4.x dialect) 38 chars

Implement this method in Object, the syntax is valid if Preferences Allow underscore assignment (which is the default setting)

%&*+/<=>?@\!~y""^Z_([:z|{#'',$`;-y}]).

declare Z as global var in pop-up menu if interactive

Explanations:

• %&*+/<=>?@!~ is a binary selector (an operator)
• y is the parameter (the operand)
• "" is an empty comment
• ^ means return
• Z is a global variable
• _ is an assignment
• () delimits a sub-expression
• [:z|] delimits a block of code with one parameter z
• {} delimits an Array
• #'' is a Symbol literal made of an empty String (first element of the Array)
• , is a binary message sent to above Symbol
• $` is a Character literal used as argument of above message
• ; is for chaining a second message sent to the same Symbol receiver #''
• the second message is -
• y is used as the second message argument
• . is for separating next instruction (here it's a final period)

Damn, who said Smalltalk was readable?

Note that I didn't cheat, the only non valid character ` is put into a literal Character. EDIT see below, this was a false assertion (at least in Squeak)

---

But we can make it down to 34 chars with this trick

%&*+,-/<=>?@\!~|y""^[{#(:_;`$')}].

This time:

• #() delimits a literal Array
• which contains 4 literal Symbols : _ ; ` and 1 literal Character $'

Strictly speaking, we can consider this as cheating... It's not a literal String, but it is still a non empty literal...

I still have to double comment quote "" (unless I make a literal Character with it $", but then I need to double the String quote '')
I still have to use a letter for the parameter (_ is not accepted even if we set Preferences allow underscore in selector to true).

What is nice is that we can even run the method, for example send the message to 1 with argument 2:

1%&*+,-/<=>?@\!~|2

---

EDIT Finally in 35 chars without cheating

!%&*+,-/<=>?@`y""^[:x_|#()~$';\{}].

Notes:

• Preferences allow underscore in selector enable using a block parameter named x_
• ` is a valid character for binary selector contrarily to what I said
• I also use $' to avoid doubling a quote

Answer 19

Common Lisp, 33 characters

#+()'|!"$%&*,-./:;<=>?@[\]^_`{}~|

The main part of the above evaluates (or rather, would evaluate if not for the #+() in front of it) to the symbol named:

!#$%&()*+,-./:;<=>?@[\]^_`{}~

The #+() is to avoid output. I'm not sure if the |foo| syntax for symbols counts as a literal, but symbols are used as variable/function names in Common Lisp, and there are a few answers already using the necessary characters in those.

Answer 20

R: 108 characters

a=new(setClass("a",representation(b="list")));a@b=list(c_d=1:2);if(1!='\t'&.1%*%1^1>a@b$c[1]/1|F){`~`<-`?`}#

Clearly the longest submission, but to be able to use symbols @ and $ in R, we need to create an object that has slots (indexed using @) and named elements (indexed using $).
The shortest solution I could think of was to create a new class of object (a=new(setClass("a",representation(b="list")))), which takes its toll. Otherwise, appart from the classics that don't need explanations (such as !=, # or 1:2),

`~`<-`?` 

creates a new operator that does the same as operator ? (i. e. it calls the help page of the element it precedes).

%*% computes the inner product of two matrices (here of 1^1 and .1).
Symbol _ does nothing (AFAIK) in R but is routinely used in variable or function names, as it is the case here.

Answer 21

TI-Basic, 36

:End:#$%&'()*+.-/;>=<?@[\]^_`{|}~,!"