How to Write a Basic Program in C: A Step-by-Step Guide

Write Program in any IDE

Program

#include<stdio.h>  
void main()
{
 printf("Hello World"); 
}

Save C program

Save any C program using .c Extension with file name. For example your program name is helloworld, then it save with helloworld.c

Always remember to save any c program we need to add .c extension.

Compile and Run C Program

Now compile the program

Now run the program

Output

Hello World

Explanation:

Let us take a look at the various parts of the above program:

• The first line of the program #include  is a preprocessor command, which tells a C compiler to include stdio.h file before going to actual compilation.

• The next line int main() is the main function where the program execution begins.

• The next line printf(...) is another function available in C which causes the message "Hello, World!" to be displayed on the screen.

• The next line return 0; terminates the main() function and returns the value 0.

Compile and Execute C Program

Let us see how to save the source code in a file, and how to compile and run it. Following are the simple steps ?

• Open a text editor and add the above-mentioned code.

• Save the file as hello.c

• Open a command prompt and go to the directory where you have saved the file.

• Type gcc hello.cand press enter to compile your code.

• If there are no errors in your code, the command prompt will take you to the next line and would generate a.out executable file.

• Now, type a.out to execute your program.

• You will see the output "Hello World" printed on the screen.

$ gcc hello.c
$ ./a.out
Hello, World!

Make sure the gcc compiler is in your path and that you are running it in the directory containing the source file hello.c