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Asked: 2026-05-14T02:21:09+00:00

Just finished reading this blog post: http://www.skorks.com/2010/03/an-interview-question-that-prints-out-its-own-source-code-in-ruby/ In it, the author argues the case

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Just finished reading this blog post: http://www.skorks.com/2010/03/an-interview-question-that-prints-out-its-own-source-code-in-ruby/

In it, the author argues the case for using a quine as an interview question. I’m not sure I agree but thats not what this question is about.

He goes on to construct a quine in Ruby and refactor it to make it shorter. He then challenges the reader to try to make it even shorter.

I played around with it for a while and came up with the following:

s="s=;puts s[0,2]+34.chr+s+34.chr+s[2,36]";puts s[0,2]+34.chr+s+34.chr+s[2,36]

This is the first time I have ever attempted a quine and I can’t figure out how to make it any shorter.

What is the shortest Ruby quine you can come up with? Please post an explanation if your implementation requires it.

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  1. Editorial Team

    Unfortunately RubyGarden doesn’t exist anymore. Here are a couple of links to make up for it (the one Kevin posted is not the shortest one anymore by the way):

    The first quines in Ruby

    s="s=%c%s%c; printf s,34,s,34,10%c"; printf s,34,s,34,10

    ruby quine slightly smaller than python quine

    _="_=%p;puts _%%_";puts _%_

    shortest nozero [sic!] ruby quine

    puts <<2*2,2
puts <<2*2,2
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