Hello World

This page walks you through writing, running, and understanding your first saQut program. If you haven’t installed the compiler yet, follow the Getting Started guide first.

Write it

Create a file called hello.sqt:

int main() {
    print("Hello, world!");
    return 0;
}

Those four lines are the complete program.

What each line does

int main() {

main is a function. Every saQut program must have one; execution starts here. int is the return type: main gives back an integer to the operating system.

    print("Hello, world!");

print() writes text to the terminal. The argument "Hello, world!" is a string literal, text between double quotes. Each statement ends with ;.

    return 0;

Returning 0 from main means “everything went fine.” The { } braces group statements into a block.

Run it

saqut run hello.sqt

If you built from source the command is ./build/saqut run hello.sqt.

Output:

Hello, world!

Try a few variations

Change the string inside print() and run again:

int main() {
    print("Hello from saQut!");
    return 0;
}

Add a second print():

int main() {
    print("First line");
    print("Second line");
    return 0;
}

Each print() writes to its own line.

Next steps

Now that you can run a program, learn how to store and name data with variables. If you want to understand the overall structure of a saQut program (functions, blocks, entry point), the Getting Started guide covers it in detail.