Just another Perl hacker, or JAPH, typically refers to a Perl program which prints "Just another Perl hacker," (the comma is canonical but is occasionally omitted). Short JAPH programs are often used as signatures in online forums, or as T-shirt designs. The phrase or acronym is also occasionally used (without code) for a signature.
JAPH programs are classically done using extremely obfuscated methods, in the spirit of the Obfuscated C Contest. More recently, as the phenomenon has become so well known, the phrase is sometimes used in ordinary examples (without obfuscation).
The idea of using tiny Perl programs which print a signature as a signature was originated by Randal L. Schwartz, in his postings to the newsgroup comp.lang.perl. Many of the JAPHs below are his.
Examples
JAPH program without obfuscation:
Embedding JAPH in opaque code:
Decoding JAPH from a transposed string literal:
Printing out JAPH as separate processes:
Appearing as if it does something completely unrelated to printing JAPH:
Forking processes to print out one letter each in the correct order:
Using only Perl keywords (no literals or punctuation):
Using only punctuation, no alphanumeric characters (written by Eric Roode; only works on Unix and Unix-like systems):
A much shorter one, using only punctuation, based on the EyeDrops module:
ASCII art (to make this dromedary-shaped code work, the console size needs to be set to at least 119×48):