{"id":21134997,"url":"https://github.com/rudxain/the-empty-program","last_synced_at":"2026-03-19T19:02:02.633Z","repository":{"id":104129295,"uuid":"484265229","full_name":"Rudxain/The-Empty-Program","owner":"Rudxain","description":"The simplicity of nothingness","archived":false,"fork":false,"pushed_at":"2024-04-13T22:20:08.000Z","size":60,"stargazers_count":2,"open_issues_count":0,"forks_count":0,"subscribers_count":1,"default_branch":"main","last_synced_at":"2025-06-04T11:16:24.230Z","etag":null,"topics":["compsci","computer-science","empty","logic","no-dependencies","nothing","null","philosophy","polyglot","quine","vaccum","void","zero","zero-dependencies"],"latest_commit_sha":null,"homepage":"","language":null,"has_issues":true,"has_wiki":null,"has_pages":null,"mirror_url":null,"source_name":null,"license":"other","status":null,"scm":"git","pull_requests_enabled":true,"icon_url":"https://github.com/Rudxain.png","metadata":{"files":{"readme":"README.md","changelog":null,"contributing":null,"funding":null,"license":"LICENSE","code_of_conduct":null,"threat_model":null,"audit":null,"citation":null,"codeowners":null,"security":null,"support":null,"governance":null,"roadmap":null,"authors":null,"dei":null,"publiccode":null,"codemeta":null}},"created_at":"2022-04-22T02:08:33.000Z","updated_at":"2023-07-18T09:12:05.000Z","dependencies_parsed_at":null,"dependency_job_id":"8b32fee5-ad19-4ffd-9453-16d88eace0a8","html_url":"https://github.com/Rudxain/The-Empty-Program","commit_stats":null,"previous_names":[],"tags_count":0,"template":false,"template_full_name":null,"purl":"pkg:github/Rudxain/The-Empty-Program","repository_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/Rudxain%2FThe-Empty-Program","tags_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/Rudxain%2FThe-Empty-Program/tags","releases_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/Rudxain%2FThe-Empty-Program/releases","manifests_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/Rudxain%2FThe-Empty-Program/manifests","owner_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners/Rudxain","download_url":"https://codeload.github.com/Rudxain/The-Empty-Program/tar.gz/refs/heads/main","sbom_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/Rudxain%2FThe-Empty-Program/sbom","scorecard":null,"host":{"name":"GitHub","url":"https://github.com","kind":"github","repositories_count":276090767,"owners_count":25583689,"icon_url":"https://github.com/github.png","version":null,"created_at":"2022-05-30T11:31:42.601Z","updated_at":"2022-07-04T15:15:14.044Z","status":"online","status_checked_at":"2025-09-20T02:00:10.207Z","response_time":63,"last_error":null,"robots_txt_status":"success","robots_txt_updated_at":"2025-07-24T06:49:26.215Z","robots_txt_url":"https://github.com/robots.txt","online":true,"can_crawl_api":true,"host_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub","repositories_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories","repository_names_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repository_names","owners_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners"}},"keywords":["compsci","computer-science","empty","logic","no-dependencies","nothing","null","philosophy","polyglot","quine","vaccum","void","zero","zero-dependencies"],"created_at":"2024-11-20T06:40:11.139Z","updated_at":"2025-09-20T11:45:24.652Z","avatar_url":"https://github.com/Rudxain.png","language":null,"funding_links":[],"categories":[],"sub_categories":[],"readme":"# TEP\n![](logo.svg)\n\n\u003e [!warning]\n\u003e This will be moved to [my wiki](https://github.com/Rudxain/RX-wiki)\n\n## Definition\nAn empty program is defined as a program that runs an implementation of the empty algorithm. The empty algorithm does **literally nothing**.\n\nA program is considered an \"instance\" of TEP if and only if it does nothing. There are 3 sets/categories an instance may belong to:\n\n0. **Identity** to The Empty Program is defined in terms of [payload](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payload_(computing)) size. A program is identical [iff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_and_only_if) the payload of its \"container\" is absolutely empty. This container can be (but it's not limited to) a text file, a raster image file, an audio file, [chemical bonds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_computer), etc. An example of identity is a 0x0 pixel image interpreted using a programming language in which pixels are \"OpCodes\" (like in [Piet](https://esolangs.org/wiki/Piet)). If a program is identical to TEP, it's considered *\"pure\"*.\n\n1. **Equality** is defined in terms of payload content. If a program has no instructions to execute, but it has compiler or interpreter directives (or anything akin to directives), it's considered equal. An example is a program that imports a library, then proceeds to do nothing. Another example is a program that activates \"strict mode\" then does nothing.\n\n2. **Equivalence** is defined in terms of actions, effects, and output. If a program has instructions, but these instructions do not affect the environment in a meaningful way, and/or the program doesn't output any data, it may be considered equivalent. An example is a program that loops 4 times but halts and does nothing else. Another example is a program entirely composed of \"No-Ops\" (operators, functions, and/or subroutines that do nothing but waste time).\n\nThe set of identical programs is a subset of the equal programs. The set of equal programs is a subset of equivalent ones.\nPrograms outside all these 3 sets are not EPs. However, a program may belong to one of these sets *depending on how it's interpreted*, which depends on both the chosen (arbitrarily) programming lang and its implementation of it. Source code comments are kind of controversial, because in some langs (like JS) they can have a subtle impact in the runtime of a program and its interaction with other components, even when `eval` isn't involved.\n\n## Computational Complexity\nAny identical and/or equal program has a time (and energy) complexity of O(0), and only identical programs have space complexity of O(0). Any other equivalent program has O(1) for the reasons mentioned above. [More info on SO](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3209139/is-the-time-complexity-of-the-empty-algorithm-o0)\n\n## Validity\nThis program is a [polyglot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyglot_(computing)) in [**a lot** of langs](https://github.com/mathiasbynens/small). But it's also a *true polyglot* in the sense that it does exactly the same thing in many langs.\n\nIt can also be considered a trivial [quine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine_(computing)), but since the program doesn't make use of I-O, it doesn't output an empty string, it outputs an undefined value, which is not quite the same.\n\nThe [code coverage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_coverage) is either `undefined`, `0%`, `100%`, or `Infinity%` lol\n\n## See also\n- [RosettaCode EPs](https://www.rosettacode.org/wiki/Empty_program)\n- [No Code](https://github.com/kelseyhightower/nocode)\n- [Nothing](https://github.com/khooz/nothing)\n","project_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Frudxain%2Fthe-empty-program","html_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/projects/github.com%2Frudxain%2Fthe-empty-program","lists_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Frudxain%2Fthe-empty-program/lists"}