Where did the C (and C++) SNIPPETS library go?

Question

Once, there was this awesome SNIPPETS library of C (and C++) code. I used it from 1995 on, but its origin is much older and it was updated until at least 2007. From time to time, I found that I needed a piece of code not from a library, but something I could cut and paste into my own projects.

To my horror, it's now gone. There are traces of it, dead links on SO for instance.

Can anybody find me a mirror, or an archive of it? I had an early version on my harddrive for years, but not any more.

Indiana

archive.org is probably the best/easiest way to get the site's content now. sites come and go, it's part of life on the web. – Hiedihiemal

Maybe DrDobbs have a mirror? drdobbs.com/blogs/cpp/228701212 – Indiana

Answer 1

TL;DR

Full github mirror of the code ^{(Edited to point to github site, since first mirror died.)}

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Since your ServerFault question was off topic, I thought I'd post this here;

*puts on detective hat*

Well DNSHistory.org reports the domain snippets.org used to point to '206.251.38.37' up till 2011-04-02 (When did the domain go?)

Using CURL to send the 'host' header to that server;

[samr@ocelot~]$ curl -I -H "Host:snippets.org" http://206.251.38.37/
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2011 15:12:16 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.9 (Debian) PHP/4.4.4-8+etch6 mod_ssl/2.2.9 OpenSSL/0.9.8g
X-Powered-By: PHP/4.4.4-8+etch6
Content-Type: text/html

gives us a response. Next step, what does that page look like?

Well just getting the HTML and opening it in lynx;

[samr@ocelot~]$ curl -H "Host:snippets.org" http://206.251.38.37/ > snippets.org.html
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100 10319    0 10319    0     0  29500      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 52583
[samr@ocelot~]$ lynx snippets.org.html

Gives the wonderful response of;

SNIPPETS sponsors [MicroFirm.gif] Firmware, system, and sensors development [Sponsor.jpg] Click here to learn more [dmlogo.gif]
"Free C/C++ Compilers" [188x44_bss14.jpg] "High-Performance Version Control"

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                                                                    [logo.gif]
                                                    Free educational resources on the Internet
              ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

                                                       Thursday, 24-Nov-2011, 15:13:22 GMT
                                                     Last modified: 01-Apr-2007, 05:50:42 GMT
                                                        395594 visitors since 15-Jul-2002
                                    __________________________________________________________________________

Mission:

SNIPPETS.ORG is dedicated to providing free informational and educational resources on the World Wide Web. Currently, the two principle topics are programming and do-it-yourself (DIY) audio. The fields covered by SNIPPETS.ORG are generally technology and arts. As soon as enough free material is collected, new sections will be added related to photography and digital imaging.

The one common factor in everything you'll find on this site is that it's all free. Programming source code is free. Tools and utilities are free. And, of course, information is always free. While SNIPPETS.ORG provides many links to commercial sites, it is a not-for-profit operation - nothing here is for sale! If you wish to contribute content, information, or entire web sites to SNIPPETS.ORG, please contact me. [snip]

So to answer your question, the domain used to point to '206.251.38.37', and the site (appears to) still exist.

Next thing; mirroring. The wget tool provides a --mirror flag to recursively download a website to a directory, which looks to be just what we're after.

Started creating a mirror on my home server, but here's the command I'm using;

wget --header="Host:snippets.org" --mirror -p --convert-links -P ./snippets.org/ http://206.251.38.37/

Then I extracted the files from the code directories and uploaded them to my mirror site http://mirror.rmg.io/snippets.org/

embedded.snippets.org reports as 'down for maintenance' so couldn't be spidered.

Fatwitted

Looks like I need to make some modifications since all the things are referencing snippets.snippets.org, I'll try and get that set up when I'm back in my room (About an hour and a half) – Fatwitted

Just add it to /etc/hosts and you can use the domain name again. – Proper

@AmigableClarkKant Full mirror of the code up at mirror.rmg.io/snippets.org =) – Fatwitted

Incredible, thank you! Is that mirror on your laptop? (You have a typo "origional" --> "original" there.) – Indiana

@AmigableClarkKant No that's on my mirror server (Currently running around 350-400GB data transfer a month) so download and share as much as you want. Less a typo, more my inability to spell =) I'll fix it now thanks – Fatwitted

sam, are you able to produce a full archive of ldsg.snippets.org ? Please, please do if you can. – Shelleyshellfire

@Shelleyshellfire Yes it would appear so, I'll have to do some link rewriting but I'll start downloading it now – Fatwitted

Answer 2

Unfortunately, Bob Stout (the guy who put it together and was ultimately its sole maintainer) died in February; when the registration on the site's domain expired, it appears that nobody renewed it. As far as I know, the site worked up until then, so it may still be there in the servers, just with no registration to make the name visible. If you could find a way to get ahold of him, Jon Guthrie would probably be the person who could get it up and running again (IIRC, he was largely responsible for putting it up on the web in the first place).

I believe all the "released" versions of Snippets are available from IFDC FileGate in the PDNCEE area. If there's enough interest, I could probably sort out the code that's still reasonably interesting from the basically-obsolete (purely MS-DOS), and put it up on Github or SourceForge or some such.

Other mirrors of the (1997) version of Snippets:

• http://www8.cs.umu.se/~isak/snippets/
• http://www.brokersys.com/snippets/

Puffin

I suspected something like that might have happened. :-( This actually brings tears to my eyes... I need to think about who are still alive that I should send a thank you note to while I still can... It's too late now. See you in heaven Bob. – Indiana

I found filegate.net/pdn/pdncee/snip9707.zip It's good enough I guess, but snippets.org was maintained at least to 2003. Would be cool if someone has a mirror. Also I think any github or so should also contain the MSDOS code. – Indiana

The BASS list will never be the same. :-( – Shelleyshellfire

This saddens me. When I started life as a programmer, Bob, Jerry Coffin, Joseph Carnage and several others on both FIDO net and RIME/Relaynet were an immense help to me. RIP Bob. And Jerry, I see you're still out there giving good advice... Salute. – Stamata

Hi! I'm Jonathan "Jon" Guthrie, and my service hosted Snippets for years and years before I got out of the hosting business. The computer was actually in my living room for a while before I suggested he find a different (read that as "real") hosting company. I am afraid I probably can't help, but from looking at the conversation it seems that help is not needed. I'm just leaving a comment here in case one of the guys who have an interest wants to get in touch. – Hell

@JonathanGuthrie: Hi Jonathon. Long time, no see (etc.) Nice to see you around. I, for one, would like to get in touch. Perhaps you could stop by Lounge<C++> where we could exchange email addresses semi-privately? – Puffin

Answer 3

The link you point to is not dead; it's alive at archive.org: http://web.archive.org/web/20080217222203/http://c.snippets.org/

Brother

Can't find anything substantial at archive.org – Indiana

@Amigable the link "Download the C archive in ZIP format" is not useful? – Shelleyshellfire

Answer 4

Now, the latest copy of the SNIPPETS archive as found from archive.org, lives on at Github.

Indiana