UNIX Fork Bomb :(){ :|:& };:

Whatever you do, please do NOT enter this code in your Unix terminal:

:(){ :|:& };:

This is one of the most elegant examples of a fork bomb, which works by creating a large number of processes very quickly in order to saturate the operating system's process table. Each process uses up CPU time and memory and so the system becomes unresponsive and is quickly brought to its knees! This is a form of denial-of-service attack.

So how does this command work? It might be easier to understand if I re-wrote it like this instead:

bomb()
{
   bomb | bomb &
}
bomb

You declare a function called bomb which calls itself recursively and pipes the output to another call of itself. The & puts the function call in the background so that the new child processes can never die. The semi-colon marks the end of the function and the final "bomb" launches the attack (by calling the function the first time).

You can only stop a fork bomb by destroying all instances of it. It is a difficult task to use another program to kill it because that would mean creating another process which the system may not have enough space for. The only guaranteed way of curing a fork bomb is to reboot.

Windows Fork bomb Example

:s
start %0
%0|%0
goto :s

Eclipse Code Templates

This post is out-of-date! For the latest version, go here: "Useful Eclipse Templates for Faster Coding".

In this post, I will share some of my Eclipse Java Code Templates.

Templates are simply "magic words" or shortcuts to standard blocks of code or text. They are very handy because once you have them setup you don't have to waste time writing boilerplate code any more! An example of a pre-defined template in Eclipse is sysout which expands to System.out.println();. All you have to do is type sysout followed by Ctrl+Space to insert the statement in your java source file.

To see what templates are defined in Eclipse:

• Open your Preferences dialog by going to Windows > Preferences
• On the navigation tree on the left, go to Java > Editor > Templates
• You will see a list of pre-defined templates
• You can add new ones by pressing the "New..." button

Here is a list of templates I have created:

1. logger

Name: logger
Context: Java statements
Description: create new Logger
Pattern:

${:import(org.apache.log4j.Logger)}
private static final Logger logger =
       Logger.getLogger(${enclosing_type}.class);

2. logd

Name: logd
Context: Java statements
Description: logger debug
Pattern:

if(logger.isDebugEnabled())
     logger.debug(${word_selection}${});${cursor}

3. logi

Name: logi
Context: Java statements
Description: logger info
Pattern:

logger.info(${word_selection}${});${cursor}

4. logerr

Name: logerr
Context: Java statements
Description: logger error
Pattern:

logger.error(${errorMessage}, ${e});

5. readfile

Name: readfile
Context: Java
Description: read text from file
Pattern:

${:import(java.io.BufferedReader,
          java.io.FileNotFoundException,
          java.io.FileReader,
          java.io.IOException)}
BufferedReader in = null;
try {
   in = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(${fileName}));
   String line;
   while ((line = in.readLine()) != null) {
      ${process}
   }
}
catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
   logger.error(e) ;
}
catch (IOException e) {
   logger.error(e) ;
} finally {
   if(in != null) in.close();
}
${cursor}

6. for (iterate over map)

Name: for
Context: Java statements
Description: iterate over map
Pattern:

for(Map.Entry<${key:argType(map,0)},${value:argType(map,1)}> entry :
                    ${map:var(java.util.Map)}.entrySet()) {
    ${key} key = entry.getKey();
    ${value} value = entry.getValue();
    ${cursor}
}

Do YOU have any useful templates? If so, share them in the comments!