Weird Machines in Package Managers: A Case Study of Input Language Complexity and Emergent Execution in Software Systems

Unexpected interactions of linguistic elements of software often produce unexpected composable computational artifacts called weird machines. Using the RPM package manager as a case study, we provide a systematic approach to discover and classify the semantics of latent functionality existing within the input space of complex systems. We demonstrate latent functionality present within the RPM package management infrastructure via the construction of a Turing-complete automaton residing within the RPM package management infrastructure.