You are not logged in. Your edit will be placed in a queue until it is peer reviewed.

We welcome edits that make the post easier to understand and more valuable for readers. Because community members review edits, please try to make the post substantially better than how you found it, for example, by fixing grammar or adding additional resources and hyperlinks.

Required fields*

Rev

Required fields*

Build a Markdown bomb [closed]

I'm sure most of us have heard of zip bombs and similar decompression bomb tricks, where a maliciously crafted input creates a massively disproportionate output. We even had a question on here to do that to a compiler at one point.

Well, it occurs to me that Markdown is a compression format of sorts, replacing bulky HTML tags with "compressed" MD tokens. Therefore, might it be possible to build a compression bomb in Markdown?

Challenge rules:

The submission should be a piece of markdown text, between 50 and 256 characters in length. (Imposing a minimum to head off some smart-aleck posting a 3-character response or similar.)
The submission will be processed by StackExchange's Markdown processor as implemented in this site.
Your score will be the ratio of character count in the resulting HTML to the character count of your Markdown text.
Highest score wins.

Answer*

If this is an answer to a challenge…

…Be sure to follow the challenge specification. However, please refrain from exploiting obvious loopholes. Answers abusing any of the standard loopholes are considered invalid. If you think a specification is unclear or underspecified, comment on the question instead.
…Try to optimize your score. For instance, answers to code-golf challenges should attempt to be as short as possible. You can always include a readable version of the code in addition to the competitive one. Explanations of your answer make it more interesting to read and are very much encouraged.
…Include a short header which indicates the language(s) of your code and its score, as defined by the challenge.

More generally…

…Please make sure to answer the question and provide sufficient detail.
…Avoid asking for help, clarification or responding to other answers (use comments instead).

Draft saved

Draft discarded

Edit Summary*

Cancel

2

\$\begingroup\$ For anyone else wondering: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion_laughs_attack \$\endgroup\$

JollyJoker
– JollyJoker

2018年09月20日 10:00:58 +00:00
Commented Sep 20, 2018 at 10:00
2

\$\begingroup\$ This is a cool find, but it's not Markdown and MathJax is not supported on this site, so it's kind of outside the stated parameters of the rules. \$\endgroup\$

Mason Wheeler
– Mason Wheeler

2018年09月20日 13:10:09 +00:00
Commented Sep 20, 2018 at 13:10
23

\$\begingroup\$ \$are^{you^{sure}}\$ it’s not supported? The page titled "Markdown Editing Help" at codegolf.stackexchange.com/editing-help explicitly mentions LaTeX. \$\endgroup\$

Roman Odaisky
– Roman Odaisky

2018年09月20日 13:27:22 +00:00
Commented Sep 20, 2018 at 13:27
1

\$\begingroup\$ @RomanOdaisky Not at all. You've probably done the calculation yourself, and reached this conclusion. I'm just saying, as a math teacher and enthusiast, that it seems like it would be a cool exercise. \$\endgroup\$

Arthur
– Arthur

2018年09月20日 15:30:46 +00:00
Commented Sep 20, 2018 at 15:30
6

\$\begingroup\$ @KamilDrakari Your wish is my command \$\def\a{🤣🤣}\def\b{\a\a}\def\c{\b\b}\def\d{\c\c}\d\d\$ \$\endgroup\$

Roman Odaisky
– Roman Odaisky

2018年09月20日 17:17:10 +00:00
Commented Sep 20, 2018 at 17:17

| Show 6 more comments

How to Edit

Correct minor typos or mistakes
Clarify meaning without changing it
Add related resources or links
Always respect the author’s intent
Don’t use edits to reply to the author

How to Format

create code fences with backticks ` or tildes ~
```
like so
```
add language identifier to highlight code
```python
def function(foo):
print(foo)
```
put returns between paragraphs
for linebreak add 2 spaces at end
_italic_ or **bold**
indent code by 4 spaces
backtick escapes `like _so_`
quote by placing > at start of line
to make links (use https whenever possible)

<https://example.com>

[example](https://example.com)

<a href="https://example.com">example</a>
MathJax equations \$\sin^2 \theta\$

formatting help »
answering help »

MathJax help »

How to Tag

A tag is a keyword or label that categorizes your question with other, similar questions. Choose one or more (up to 5) tags that will help answerers to find and interpret your question.

complete the sentence: my question is about...
use tags that describe things or concepts that are essential, not incidental to your question
favor using existing popular tags
read the descriptions that appear below the tag

If your question is primarily about a topic for which you can't find a tag:

combine multiple words into single-words with hyphens (e.g. code-golf), up to a maximum of 35 characters
creating new tags is a privilege; if you can't yet create a tag you need, then post this question without it, then ask the community to create it for you

popular tags »