Non-printable characters in answer?

Question

This mostly applies to kolmogorov-complexity questions.

Is it allowed to use non-printable characters in answers? This effectively makes the answer a string of bytes.

If yes, how is the answer supposed to be supplied, considering that non-printable characters won't be correctly displayed?

Chris Jester-Young · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-22 19:51:12Z

5

Yes, you can use binary answers. Provide a hexdump of your solution if it's otherwise ambiguous.

answered Mar 22 '15 at 19:51

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\$\begingroup\$ Maybe hosting the binary file as a download for easy verification is handy too? You can for example create a gist, clone it, change the file to your binary file, and push. This would of course be in addition to the hexdump so the answer stays self-contained. \$\endgroup\$ – orlp Mar 22 '15 at 19:52
\$\begingroup\$ That's an optional extra, but make sure your solution remains valid if the download site is down. \$\endgroup\$ – Chris Jester-Young Mar 22 '15 at 19:53
1

\$\begingroup\$ I was already editing that in :) \$\endgroup\$ – orlp Mar 22 '15 at 19:53

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