11
\$\begingroup\$

An interesting number I failed to find - what's the longest accepted answer ever?
Probably someone with SE scripting skills can figure this out.

More accurate phrasing of my question - I'm looking for the longest answer that:

  1. Answers a question. Maybe it should be limited to pure code-golf (i.e. no bonuses), but I think not.
  2. Is accepted.
  3. Is rightfully accepted (if the OP accepted a long answer by mistake, it's not interesting).

The longest I could find is this. It's , which makes it a bit less interesting.

\$\endgroup\$
6
  • 3
    \$\begingroup\$ I think there are some poorly thought-out restricted-source challenges admitting Unary answers. \$\endgroup\$
    – feersum
    Commented Aug 10, 2016 at 8:02
  • \$\begingroup\$ Are you also interested if no answer was accepted, but there is a winning answer (where the lack of acceptance was not due to any problem with it)? Some challenge authors just don't use the accept tick. \$\endgroup\$
    – trichoplax is on Codidact now
    Commented Aug 10, 2016 at 9:17
  • \$\begingroup\$ @feersum are any of those such that the Unary answer would be shorter than any other language? \$\endgroup\$
    – trichoplax is on Codidact now
    Commented Aug 10, 2016 at 9:18
  • \$\begingroup\$ @trichoplax I'm not sure; there have definitely been ones where Unary easily wins due to a poor scoring system, but maybe none of those could be considered similary to golf. \$\endgroup\$
    – feersum
    Commented Aug 10, 2016 at 10:13
  • \$\begingroup\$ What about non-accepted answers? Any worse than Worst Code Golf ever? \$\endgroup\$
    – Andrew Grimm
    Commented Aug 21, 2016 at 6:27
  • \$\begingroup\$ Fun fact: whitespace answers \$\endgroup\$
    – Matthew Roh
    Commented Mar 11, 2017 at 14:41

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
17
\$\begingroup\$

On the basis of some data.stackexchange.com hacking, assuming the first line of each answer contains its length followed by bytes or char, it seems to be https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/40698/194 (also ) at 8559 bytes.

https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/75326/194 is an accepted answer of 10791 bytes, but there are shorter answers.

Excluding , and ignoring some other bad candidates, https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/23508/194 might be a good one: it's 4011, but it does have a comment from its author saying that about 1000 of them are redundant.

https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/12210/194 is 3710 bytes, but mainly data.

https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/4479/194 is 3031 bytes.

Honourable mention also for https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/75887/194 at 1915.

\$\endgroup\$
4
  • \$\begingroup\$ At the first link you linked to, the answer immediately below the linked one is 17,055 bytes. \$\endgroup\$
    – AAM111
    Commented Aug 11, 2016 at 1:29
  • \$\begingroup\$ @OldBunny2800, there are much longer answers if you ditch the second requirement (must be the accepted answer). \$\endgroup\$
    – Peter Taylor
    Commented Aug 11, 2016 at 5:22
  • \$\begingroup\$ Aw, only honourable mention? I need to up my verbosity :) \$\endgroup\$
    – Flambino
    Commented Aug 15, 2016 at 16:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks! That's great. Although I was able to golf your first reference down to 6557 bytes. :-D \$\endgroup\$
    – YetiCGN
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 13:01
0
\$\begingroup\$

Not the longest one, but:

The accepted answer on 12 Days of Christmas Lyrics uses Brainf**k and has 2,974 bytes.

However, it is also tagged .

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • \$\begingroup\$ That isn't even close to the longest answer. See Peter's list. \$\endgroup\$
    – user45941
    Commented Aug 24, 2016 at 2:57

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .