Question

I am trying to understand how this piece of self-replicating code works (found here), but the problem is I can’t get it to run as-is:

class c {
    static void Main(){

        string s = "class c{{static void Main(){{string s={0}{10};System.Console.Write(s,(char)34,s);}}}}";

        System.Console.Write(s,(char)34,s); //<<-- exception on this line

    }
}

It’s throwing an exception on writeline: Index (zero based) must be greater than or equal to zero and less than the size of the argument list.

Can someone help – in particular about the formatting option {0}{10}?

I got it working like this (see below) but it’s longer than the original – I am curious how the original could have worked as-is in the 1st place:

class c {
    static void Main(){

        string s = "class c{{static void Main(){{string s={0}{1}{2};System.Console.Write(s,(char)34,s,(char)34);}}}}";

        System.Console.Write(s,(char)34,s,(char)34);
    }
}

Answer 1

I think there is a pair of braces missing – instead of {10} it should read {1}{0}.

class c {
    static void Main(){

        string s = "class c{{static void Main(){{string s={0}{1}{0};System.Console.Write(s,(char)34,s);}}}}";

        System.Console.Write(s,(char)34,s); //<<-- exception on this line

    }
}