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In a language of your choice, write a program that exactly outputs the characters Hello world! followed by a newline. The code:

  • should not use any character more than twice (alphanumeric, symbol, whitespace...anything)
  • should not use any external resources
  • should not use any user input
  • should not output anything else

An example of a valid python program:

print("He%so world!"%(2*'l'))

An example of an invalid python program (the character 'r' is used three times):

print("Hel"+chr(108)+'o world!')

Winner is whoever has the most votes after 14 days.

share|improve this question
3  
Is it allowed to use a letter more than twice in different case? E.g. "RRrr" –  Boann 2 days ago
18  
What about the repeated letter o in the "valid" python example. There also these:- " ' ( ) –  Adam Speight 2 days ago
10  
@AdamSpeight what do you mean? The letter is only used twice, as per the specs. –  Josh 2 days ago
5  
@AdamSpeight ... which is literally the same. –  VisioN 2 days ago
40  
I guess brainfuck is out of the question... –  Jubobs 2 days ago
show 19 more comments

60 Answers

Ruby (1.9+)

Since this is a popularity contest let's try to not use ANY of the characters from 'Hello world!' while still using other characters only a maximum of two times:

puts("S\107VsbG8gV29ybGQhCg".unpack(?m))

It's 40 chars btw.

Bash

And this one uses unicode magic.

Notes:

  • While the orignal characters appear elsewhere (unlike the ruby example), the printed string contains only non-ascii characters.
  • Two from the three spaces are actually tabs, so there are no utf-8 characters that appear more than 2 times
  • As binary some of the octets do appear more than 2 times, hopefully that's not against the rules. I'm trying to resolve them though.

Code:

echo 'π“—πžπ‘™π’π“Έβ€Šπ“¦π—ˆπ–—π–‘π˜₯Β‘'|iconv -t  asCIi//TRANSLIT

For those who don't have a proper font installed it looks like this:

code as image

Here is the hexdump:

00000000  65 63 68 6f 20 27 f0 9d  93 97 f0 9d 90 9e f0 9d  |echo '..........|
00000010  91 99 f0 9d 92 8d f0 9d  93 b8 e2 80 8a f0 9d 93  |................|
00000020  a6 f0 9d 97 88 f0 9d 96  97 f0 9d 96 91 f0 9d 98  |................|
00000030  a5 c2 a1 27 7c 69 63 6f  6e 76 09 2d 74 09 61 73  |...'|iconv.-t.as|
00000040  43 49 69 2f 2f 54 52 41  4e 53 4c 49 54 0a        |CIi//TRANSLIT.|
0000004e

You have to run it on a machine where the default charset is utf-8. I tried on an OSX10.8 using iTerm2 with the following environment:

bash running in iTerm2

PHP 5.4

This uses zLib: (unfortunately it does uses the characters e and o)

<?=gzuncompress('xβ–’β–’Hβ–’β–’β–’W(β–’/β–’IQβ–’!qh');

Hexdump:

00000000  3c 3f 3d 67 7a 75 6e 63  6f 6d 70 72 65 73 73 28  |<?=gzuncompress(|
00000010  27 78 9c f3 48 cd c9 c9  57 28 cf 2f ca 49 51 e4  |'x..H...W(./.IQ.|
00000020  02 00 21 71 04 68 27 29  3b                       |..!q.h');|
00000029

+1

Here is the ruby 2.0 code I used to test for duplicates:

d=ARGF.read
p [d.split(//),d.unpack('C*')].map{|x|x.inject(Hash.new(0)){|i,s|i[s]+=1;i}.select{|k,v|v>2}}
share|improve this answer
1  
While I always appreciate Unicode cleverness, your bash attempt doesn't seem to satisfy the question's specification. "write a program that exactly outputs the characters Hello world! followed by a newline" –  FireFly 2 days ago
8  
@FireFly: it does satisfy it. iconv with the target encoding ascii//translit will transliterate the unicode characters to basic ascii. And of course echo will add the newline, so this one fits the spec (if we don't consider the similarity of the octets) –  SztupY 2 days ago
2  
On my system I get Hello World? instead of Hello World! –  marinus 2 days ago
1  
@SztupY oh, you're right, my bad. Very clever, I like it! –  FireFly 2 days ago
1  
@MrLister '\x9D` is an octet that is part of a single Unicode character. The question did specify repetition of characters, not bytes, so I'd consider this legal. Anyway, he could encode it in UTF-32, in which case going by (32-bit) characters would make it satisfy the rules. –  FireFly yesterday
show 5 more comments

HQ9+, 1 char

H

keeping it simple :)

share|improve this answer
2  
HQ9+ outputs a comma though ;) –  Josh 2 days ago
7  
I'd still keep your answer out...it is a popularity contest after all, rules are for the wind! –  Josh 2 days ago
2  
For any challenge like this, HQ9+ should be outlawed just because it's so obvious to begin with. –  Iszi 2 days ago
16  
@Josh This is one of the rare events where I miss the downvote button on comments. If we throw away rules there is nothing left to justify the contest at all. –  Howard 2 days ago
6  
All print Hello World questions are actually who can submit a HQ9+ answer faster questions. –  totymedli 2 days ago
show 3 more comments

C, 192 chars

#
#
/*$$@``*/ATION_[]={9.};main(BBCDDEEFFGGHJJKKLLMMPPQQRRSSUUVVWWXXYYZZabbdefgghhjjkkmpqqsstuuvvwxyyzz) {printf("He%clo \
world!%c\
",2^7&!8.&~1|~-1?4|5?0x6C:48:6<3>2>=3<++ATION_[0],'@'^79-5);}

Since this isn't golf, I decided to have some fun and try to use every character exactly twice (while putting as few as possible in a comment, because that's boring). I realise that I didn't do terribly well, since my code contains a ton of boring "dead" code too (not in the literal sense, but in the sense of placeholder characters just used in order to fullfil the requirement). Anyway, this was surprisingly hard (but fun) with the two-character limitation, so unfortunately I couldn't come up with anything more interesting. It did give me an idea for a new problem though...

(Updated per @ugoren's comment.)

share|improve this answer
2  
Creatively impressive. I like it. –  Josh 2 days ago
 
The slash `\` ending lines three and four make it a line continuation, not newline. And line four is terminated by a EOF, making it legal. –  Josh 2 days ago
 
I think you can easily uncomment . by using it for fractions. Also you can declare an array and use []. –  ugoren 18 hours ago
 
@ugoren good call about .; I only thought about using it for struct access. <s>As for array declarations, I'm out of ,s due to the printf call, and I'm also out of ;s, so I'm not sure how I could declare one.</s> Duh, I could replace ATION_... –  FireFly 18 hours ago
add comment

Vim command (18 keystrokes)

iHeEsc3alEscio WorRightd!Enter

Doesn't repeat any keystroke more than twice.

It kinda violates the "user input" rule since it's still the user that needs to input that sequence, but I suppose if you store it as a macro or an nnoremap beforehand it would count, since you're just running it without explicitly doing any input to make it happen.

share|improve this answer
13  
If you're talking about the characters in Right, Esc, and Enter, they're not literally those characters. Vim deals in keystrokes, which I am deeming equivalent to characters for the purposes of this contest (and the "don't repeat more than twice" rule). I only use the i keystroke twice, and the <Right> keystroke once. As for E, I never use it at all - but I do use <Esc> twice and <Enter> once. –  Joe Z. 2 days ago
4  
Now I'm disappointed that Emacs doesn't have a M-x hello-world command... –  RemcoGerlich 2 days ago
3  
Even if it did, that's three ls. –  Joe Z. 2 days ago
1  
You should note that you have to :set nocompatible. –  jazzpi 19 hours ago
1  
Amazing, but myself find using Right not very vim-y. –  gefei 17 hours ago
show 4 more comments

Powershell, 20

"He$('l'*2)o world!"
share|improve this answer
 
"l" is repeated 2 times, and so are the quote characters –  MistressDavid 2 days ago
8  
@MistressDavid That makes this answer valid. Quote: "should not use any character more than twice (alphanumeric, symbol, whitespace...anything)". So single repetitions are okay. Also, since you saw so many answers with that "problem", instead of posting a comment on each one, you should stop and reconsider, asking yourself, "Why does everyone repeat characters? Did I misunderstand something or are there really so many people who would misunderstand the question?" –  Quincunx 2 days ago
 
@Quincunx My bad. I really should have read the question more carefully. –  MistressDavid 2 days ago
add comment

Perl, 29 characters

This answer includes x-rated clogs!

say"07-8*d<#B+>!"^xRATEDkL0GZ

Perl, 23 characters

Shorter, but no porno shoes. :-( Same basic idea though...

say'0@@lo World!'^"x%,"

Perl, 20 characters

Boring...

say"Hello Wor\x6Cd!"
share|improve this answer
3  
Um....kinky? +1 :) –  Josh yesterday
add comment

Python 3 [38 bytes]

exec('import '+chr(95)*2+"h\x65llo__")

I wouldn't consider import __hello__ as an external resource.

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add comment

Perl: 34 characters

$_="He12o wor3d!
";s{\d}{l}g;print

Sample run:

bash-4.1# perl -e '$_="He12o wor3d!
> ";s{\d}{l}g;print'
Hello world!

(Not a big deal. Posted just to use at least once in my life s/// with those fancy delimiters.)

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add comment

Ruby: 27 characters

puts [:Hel,'o wor',"d!"]*?l

Sample run:

bash-4.1# ruby <<ENDOFSCRIPT
> puts [:Hel,'o wor',"d!"]*?l
> ENDOFSCRIPT
Hello world!

Ruby: 25 characters

(Based on Vache's comment.)

puts 'He'+?l*2+"o world!"

Ruby: 23 characters

(Copy of Danko Durbić's Powershell answer.)

puts"He#{?l*2}o world!"
share|improve this answer
 
puts 'He'+'l'*2+'o world!' is one character shorter! –  Vache 2 days ago
3  
But has 6 β€œ'”'s… –  manatwork 2 days ago
 
haha I was so focused on letter characters that I never noticed that. never mind! –  Vache 2 days ago
1  
Remove the space after puts and make it 23. -- puts"He#{?l*2}o world!" –  Sampriti Panda 2 days ago
1  
@SampritiPanda, p includes quotes in the output. I prefer to keep strictly with the required output format. But you are right, the space is not needed. Thank you. –  manatwork 2 days ago
show 2 more comments

PHP, 33 chars

I just love how much PHP is forgiving and understanding!

<?=Hel.str_rot13("yb jbe").'ld!';

Before it was deleted (or if it's still there, I'm totally blind), I saw a comment saying "No brainf*ck? :D". Well, it is pretty much impossible to write a solution in BrainF*ck, as you know. But I managed to code this, just for the lulz.

++++++++++[>++++>+++++>++++++>+++++++>++++++++++>+++++++++++>+++++++++<<<<<<<-]
>>>.+++.--.>++.>+.+++++++.<<<<++++++.>>>>>+++++.+.--.>+++++.<.---.+++++.<<<<-.+
+.<------.------.>>>>>+++++.<----------.<<<<--.>>>>++++++++.--------.+++.
<<<<++.+++++++.+++++.-------.>>>>+++++++.--------.<<<<------.++++++.>++++++++.

If you don't have a BF interpreter, the code above just prints the PHP one :P

share|improve this answer
 
I didn't know even a code like this is valid! Php tag isn't closed and string Hel isn't surrounded by quotes. Also I've never heard about str_rot13 before. –  Aycan Yaşıt 2 days ago
1  
@AycanYaşıt the closing php tag is not required on EOF, and if you put a string without quotes it assumes it is an undeclared constant with the same content as its name and gives a warning –  Einacio 2 days ago
1  
You can avoid the warning (and save the first .) by putting the Hel before the <?=. –  PaΕ­lo Ebermann 2 days ago
3  
@PaΕ­loEbermann Hel<?=str_rot13("yb jbe")?>ld! –  MirroredFate 2 days ago
2  
@PaΕ­loEbermann I would say that using that is like cheating, since it's not pure PHP anymore. –  Vereos 2 days ago
show 4 more comments

HTML Fiddle - 21 characters

Hel&#108;o World!<br>
share|improve this answer
 
Does that include the trailing newline? –  Josh 2 days ago
 
Doh...missed that requirement! I'll add a <br> in there. –  Briguy37 2 days ago
 
I'm not quite sure that the <br> tag actually outputs a \n character. –  netinept 2 days ago
7  
@netinept :It asked for a newline, not a \n so I'd say <br> counts –  Chris 2 days ago
1  
But the character r is repeated in the solution. Did I misinterpret the requirements? –  JAnderton 2 days ago
show 1 more comment

C - 43 Characters

main(){printf("Hel%co World!%c",'k'+1,10);}

Output

Hello World!

Character Counts

' ' Count: 1    '!' Count: 1    '"' Count: 2    '%' Count: 2    ''' Count: 2
'(' Count: 2    ')' Count: 2    '+' Count: 1    ',' Count: 2    '0' Count: 1
'1' Count: 2    ';' Count: 1    'H' Count: 1    'W' Count: 1    'a' Count: 1
'c' Count: 2    'd' Count: 1    'e' Count: 1    'f' Count: 1    'i' Count: 2
'k' Count: 1    'l' Count: 2    'm' Count: 1    'n' Count: 2    'o' Count: 2
'p' Count: 1    'r' Count: 2    't' Count: 1    '{' Count: 1    '}' Count: 1
share|improve this answer
 
Don't you need main etc? –  FireFly 2 days ago
 
@FireFly I guess so! It did say to write a program. –  Kirk Backus 2 days ago
 
That's C but not C++. C++ does not have implicit int (and you can't spare another i). –  Ben Voigt 2 days ago
 
@BenVoigt Okie dokie! –  Kirk Backus 2 days ago
add comment

Sclipting

δΈŸλ‚†λ…¬λ‹†λ¬¬κΈ…λ―λŒ¦λ‘€κΈλ€Š

I saw this beautiful HelloWorld program on esolang's Hello World program list.

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JavaScript, 66 characters

alert('Hel'+window.atob("\x62G8gd29ybGQhCg=="));//rH+in.\x689yQhC;

Inspired by FireFly, every character used by this code is used exactly twice.

share|improve this answer
 
I think you are allowed to use some characters just once, and you can drop the comment. –  Jan Dvorak 2 days ago
2  
@JanDvorak - well, sure he could have done it that way - but I think this solution is deserving of an upvote for the sheer bloodymindedness of using each and every character exactly twice. :-) –  Bob Jarvis yesterday
1  
+1, but it's easy to use each character exactly twice if you just add gibberish as a comment. –  Camilo Martin yesterday
add comment

Emacs Command (14 keystrokes)

He<Ctrl-3>l<Left>o wor<End>d<Enter>

If that vim answers is legal then this must be too :)

Joking aside, macro it can become too :)

More nonsense aside, I can probably squeeze some more, but this seems to be good enough for the time being (since it beats vim).

P.S., please ignore all my nonsense (I (rarely, but)use vim too!).

share|improve this answer
2  
I still think vim > emacs. –  Joe Z. 2 days ago
add comment

Scala: 34 29 characters

I'm proud of myself for this one:

printf("He%c%co world!\n",108,108)

Had a really hard time overcoming duplicate 'l's, 'r's, quotation marks and brackets. Then I discovered the old Java printf function, which will happily convert numbers to letters when given the %c format specifier.

Update

MrWonderful did a wonderful thing by pointing out that a whole bunch of characters can be saved by using up my second 'l' manually in the string!

printf("Hel%co world!\n",108)
share|improve this answer
1  
@KCaloux, Since you are allowed up to 2 'l's, wouldn't printf("Hel%co world\n",108) at 28 be even better? –  MrWonderful 2 days ago
 
@MrWonderful I think you're absolutely correct! (Also I just realized that I forgot to include the '!') –  KChaloux 2 days ago
 
From what I understand, this isn't a valid entry, though a good attempt at it. printf contains a r as does world. Same goes for the letter o which is used more than once. This is based on my interpretation of the following statement from the OP "An example of an invalid python program (the character 'r' is used three times): print("Hel"+chr(108)+'o world!')" –  JAnderton 2 days ago
 
@JAnderton I had a ruby program parse out my script to make sure there were no characters included more than twice. Read it again. There are 2 rs, not 3. One in "printf" and one in "world". The reason the python one is invalid is because it includes chr –  KChaloux yesterday
add comment

Piet-- No characters whatsoever!

Hello world in Piet

share|improve this answer
3  
I would consider the codels as "characters". –  PaΕ­lo Ebermann 2 days ago
 
@PaΕ­loEbermann What would you consider to be a unique codel? EG different shapes? colors? sizes? some combination thereof? –  ValekHalfHeart 14 hours ago
add comment

JavaScript [37 bytes]

alert(atob("SGVsbG8g")+'wor\x6cd!\n')

Too primitive isn't it?

share|improve this answer
5  
Where’s the newline? –  Christopher Creutzig 2 days ago
 
@ChristopherCreutzig Sorry, forgot it. Now it is in place. –  VisioN yesterday
add comment

Fugue

From the esolang wiki:

enter image description here

And you can listen to the source code.

share|improve this answer
7  
I'd say this is invalid. I can see more than 4 middle c's in the right hand. –  Quincunx 2 days ago
3  
Not to mention the string of four consecutive G's in the 9th measure. –  Joe Z. 2 days ago
 
Did you write this, or only render it? Given that you link to the esolang archive's MIDI. –  FireFly 2 days ago
2  
-1 for plagiarism. This is from esolang wiki. You do not cite it. Edit: reverted, now the esolang wiki is cited. –  Quincunx 2 days ago
add comment

Actually I don't like cheating :P

Python 2

print("!dlrow o%seH"%('l'*2))[::-1]
share|improve this answer
2  
You should specify that it's for python2. In python3 the you get the reversed string as output and then a TypeError. –  Bakuriu 2 days ago
1  
For use in Py3K argument of print must by enclosed in parenthesises. print("!dlrow os%eH"[::-1]%('l'*2)) work in both (Python2 and Py3K) versions. –  AMK 17 hours ago
add comment

nginx.conf

return  200 "He&#x6clo wo&#x72ld!\n";

In action:

% curl -6 http://localhost/ | lynx -dump -stdin
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100    21  100    21    0     0  20958      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 21000

   Hello world!

%
share|improve this answer
 
There are 4 spaces in this solution... –  Josh 2 days ago
2  
@Josh, actually, there are 5. But couldn't you consider that two of the first four are tabs, and then the last one is a non-breakable space? :-) –  cnst 2 days ago
 
That works for me! –  Josh 2 days ago
 
@Josh, actually, now that we're using HTML, no more need for set. This only has 3 spaces now, any one of which could be a tab! –  cnst 2 days ago
 
Very nicely done. –  Josh 2 days ago
show 2 more comments

You have to use more expressive languages.

Chinese, 6 chars

δΈ–η•Œ,δ½ ε₯½!

(using google translate)

share|improve this answer
2  
+1 for sheer cheek. –  Joe Z. 12 hours ago
3  
+1 for rule bending... "In a language of your choice..." –  Eliseo d'Annunzio 11 hours ago
 
Love it. But how exactly is that a program? –  Arlaud Pierre 1 hour ago
 
Actually you can look at it as a program in a google translate language - for Chinese as its sub-language :) –  Tomas 1 hour ago
add comment

Hmm.

In C, given these rules, we can only have one #define (because of i and n) and at most two function calls OR definitions (( and )).

I presume there's pretty much only one way to do it (though I'm probably wrong):

main(){puts("Hello w\x6fr\154d!");}
share|improve this answer
 
You still need to output the trailing newline. Doing this challenge in C is difficult... –  Josh 2 days ago
1  
@Josh I just have to use puts() instead of printf(). –  Oberon 2 days ago
2  
But what's wrong with o in world? –  VisioN 2 days ago
 
@VisioN In an old draft of the same code (before I realized how hard it actually was to write such a program) I used another 'o' elsewhere. But this isn't code-golf, so I guess it doesn't have to be fixed. –  Oberon 2 days ago
4  
In fact, I'm not sure why every answer is displaying a character count. –  Oberon 2 days ago
add comment

BASH

printf 'Hel\x6co world!\n'

Cred @manatwork

echo $'Hel\x6c\x6f world!'
share|improve this answer
 
The first one has 3 β€œe”'s and 3 β€œo”'s. –  manatwork 2 days ago
 
@manatwork: Gag; thanx ;) –  Sukminder 2 days ago
 
In Bash you may skip -e by using the special $'…' syntax: echo $'Hel\x6c\x6f world!'. –  manatwork 2 days ago
add comment

C - 46 Characters

main(){printf("He%clo wor%cd!\x0d",'l',108);}

Prints out:

Hello world!

share|improve this answer
 
If you're aiming for golf, main(){printf("He%clo world!%c",108,10);} should work, and saves you a few chars. –  FireFly 2 days ago
 
@FireFly you're right, you'd save me 3 characters. Your suggestion works perfectly, too. –  Phillip Kinkade 2 days ago
add comment

Befunge 98

a"!dlrow ol":'e'Hck,@

Here is a version where every character appears twice.

bka!e:dw"H@!dlrow  ol":'e'Hbk,a,@

Leaves a bunch of junk on the stack.

As a bonus, every single character has something done with it by the IP.

share|improve this answer
add comment

GolfScript

'He

o world!'n/"l"*

Substitutes two newlines (fortunately the third one, needed for the substitution, is provided by the built-in n), using both types of string literal to avoid quadruplicate copies of a quote mark. Since l is the only character which occurs more than twice in the original string, it's not too hard.

share|improve this answer
 
You forgot the "!". –  Howard 2 days ago
 
@Howard, missed it. Oops. –  Peter Taylor 2 days ago
 
The letter o is repeated also –  Adam Speight 2 days ago
1  
@AdamSpeight: There is only twice the letter o. The rules say that it's not allowed to have a character more than twice. –  ProgramFOX 2 days ago
add comment

AWK,34

BEGIN{printf"Hel%co world!\n",108}
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nginx.conf

set $i l;
return 202 "Hel${i}o world!\n";

In action:

opti# curl -6v "http://localhost/"
* About to connect() to localhost port 80 (#0)
*   Trying ::1...
* connected
* Connected to localhost (::1) port 80 (#0)
> GET / HTTP/1.1
> User-Agent: curl/7.26.0
> Host: localhost
> Accept: */*
>
< HTTP/1.1 202 Accepted
< Server: nginx/1.4.1
< Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 18:02:08 GMT
< Content-Type: application/octet-stream
< Content-Length: 13
< Connection: keep-alive
<
Hello world!
* Connection #0 to host localhost left intact
* Closing connection #0
share|improve this answer
 
Unfortunately your code has three e's and three l's! –  Josh 2 days ago
 
One of the duplicate l's can be removed easily. e is harder, unless nginx is case-insensitive –  SztupY 2 days ago
3  
Don't forget the spaces! –  Vereos 2 days ago
 
And 3×'r', as well –  Joel Purra 19 hours ago
add comment

XQuery (19 chars)

"Hello Wor&#x6C;d!"
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