The First Program in Golang - Golang Hello World

Introduction

Golang is a statically typed compiled programming language with in-built support for garbage collection and concurrent programming. It was designed by Ken Thompson and the team and publicly released in Nov 2009.

Golang Features

• Golang programs are simple, concise, and type-safe.
• Golang is a statically typed language.
• Golang is a compiled language.
• Golang performs automatic garbage collection.
• Golang comes with a powerful library that is distributed as packages.

Features of Golang that Are Not Supported

• No classes
• No constructors
• No inheritance
• No exceptions

Compilation of Golang File

In order to run a go program, a go compiler is needed. Following are the steps in which the go program should be compiled:

• Save the program with the .go extension for instance if the file name is “hello” then save it as hello.go
• Now run the file saved that is, run the hello.go file by using the command: $ go run hello.go
• The output should be printed on the command line after running the file.

Hello Scaler Code in Golang

Write a simple hello scaler in go program.

Output:

Line by Line Description of The Code

Package name:

• Every go file must start with package_name.
• There must be a package main and func main in the program.
• If the package name is not “main” and if we try to run then we get a runtime error that says: go run: cannot run non-main package.

import “fmt”:

• Import “fmt” will import fmt package to print text to the standard output using Println()/Print()/ Printf().
• If we import “fmt” but we do not use it then we get a compile-time error that says: imported and not used: “fmt”.

main():

• Function main() is the place from where the execution of the program starts and should always reside in the main package.
• Function main() should be there in package main else will get a compile-time error saying: function main is undeclared in the main package.

Running Hello Scaler Code(Run Command in The Terminal)

Go tool:- go is a tool for managing Go source code.

The usage is: go <command> [arguments]

Commands are:

• version - prints go version.
• run - compile and run go programming.
• build - compile packages and dependencies into an executable. file
• get - download and install packages and dependencies.
• install - compile and install packages and dependencies.