International Obfuscated Python Code Competition

Submissions are now open for the 3rd (2025) IOPCC!

Goals of the Contest

This competition is an homage to/adaptation of the IOCCC.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

This competition is an homage to/adaptation of the IOCCC, which was created by Leo Broukhis, Simon Cooper, and Landon Curt Noll

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

© Copyright 2025, Julius Park -- All rights reserved.

We like programs that:

Because this is a Python competition, there will also be consideration for clever uses of the Python interpreter internals. The weirder, more obscure, more obfuscated your program is, the more likely it is to win. However, each of those axes are weighted equally by the judges.

Rules

Submissions are currently open for the 3rd (2025) IOPCC.

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Judges

2nd International Obfuscated Python Code Contest (2024)

2024.zip all of the data for 2024 (18.2MB)

commandz - Best punchline
mindiell - Best use of deprecated software
kefalonia - Reddest herring
changlu1106 - Most unlikely to give you up
warrenusui - Most fully functional
calculatorcoder42 - Most complex

1st International Obfuscated Python Code Contest (2023)

2023.zip all of the data for 2023 (5.2MB)

4evnyuij - Most roundabout
denballakh - Most understated
lippmann - Most introspective
mindiell - Most reproducible
moshe - Most puzzling
vuksan - Tallest house of cards