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Q&A

Welcome to Software Development on Codidact!

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Comments on Detailed explanation of "hello, world" in C?

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Detailed explanation of "hello, world" in C?

+7
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I am trying to print "hello, world" on screen in in C using this code:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
  printf("hello, world\n");
  return 0;
}

I typed this down in a text file named main.c and compiled with gcc main.c -O program (or program.exe on Windows) and then ran program - it works and I'm told not to worry about all the details yet.

Still I am looking for a more more in-depth explanation of this code. What does all of this mean, in great detail?


(This is a self-answered Q&A aimed to those who aren't satisfied with the explanation "just accept that this works for now". Accepting this for now would normally be a very sensible approach if you just picked up C or even programming overall, but there are always those who insist on learning all the details still.)

History

1 comment thread

Scope (1 comment)
Scope
Karl Knechtel‭ wrote 6 months ago

Explaining something like this, as seen in our answers, requires surprising breadth even though the question seems entirely reasonably scoped. I'd like to see additional questions to cover conceptual sub-topics (e.g. "what is a function?"), which could then be referenced from answers here to shorten them.