CodeSOD: Classic WTF: Quantum Computering

When does anything but [0-9A-F] equal "2222"? Well, it's a holiday in the US today, so take a look at this classic WTF where that's exactly what happens… -Remy

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A little while back, I posted a function that generated random hexadecimal-like strings for a GUID-like string to identify events. At first, I thought it (and the rest of the system that Taka's company purchased) was just bad code. But now that I look at it further, I'm stunned at its unbelievable complexity. I can honestly say that I've never seen code that is actually prepared to run a quantum computer, where binary just isn't as simple as 1's and 0's ...

Function hex2bin(hex)
  Select Case hex
    Case "0"
      hex2bin = "0000"
    Case "1"
      hex2bin = "0001"
    Case "2"
      hex2bin = "0010"
    Case "3"
      hex2bin = "0011"
    Case "4"
      hex2bin = "0100"
    Case "5"
      hex2bin = "0101"
    Case "6"
      hex2bin = "0110"
    Case "7"
      hex2bin = "0111"
    Case "8"
      hex2bin = "1000"
    Case "9"
      hex2bin = "1001"
    Case "A"
      hex2bin = "1010"
    Case "B"
      hex2bin = "1011"
    Case "C"
      hex2bin = "1100"
    Case "D"
      hex2bin = "1101"
    Case "E"
      hex2bin = "1110"
    Case "F"
      hex2bin = "1111"
    Case Else
      hex2bin = "2222"
  End Select
End Function

The library codefiles for this system has plenty of other ultra-advanced functions. We'll have to explore these another day, but I will leave you with this method of handling quantum hexadecimal ...

Function hex2dec(hex)
  Select Case hex
    Case "0"
      hex2dec = 0
    Case "1"
      hex2dec = 1
    Case "2"
      hex2dec = 2
    Case "3"
      hex2dec = 3
    Case "4"
      hex2dec = 4
    Case "5"
      hex2dec = 5
    Case "6"
      hex2dec = 6
    Case "7"
      hex2dec = 7
    Case "8"
      hex2dec = 8
    Case "9"
      hex2dec = 9
    Case "A"
      hex2dec = 10
    Case "B"
      hex2dec = 11
    Case "C"
      hex2dec = 12
    Case "D"
      hex2dec = 13
    Case "E"
      hex2dec = 14
    Case "F"
      hex2dec = 15
    Case Else
      hex2dec = -1
 End Select
End Function

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To read the full article, please visit The Daily WTF