Can a program output a copy of itself

Question

I think this might be a classic question but I am not aware of an answer. Can a program output a copy of itself, and, if so, is there a short program that does this?

Answer 1

Michael Sipser’s “Introduction to the Theory of Computation” explains in one of the chapters how to construct a quine. I have recently written a Java program based on that idea and posted it at : http://bornagainprogrammer.net/2009/11/07/hello-world-from-the-tm-self/

I'd suggest you get hold of that book and try implementing the program yourself in your favorite language. There are lot of other fun theorems in that book.

-kiran