Golang Hello World Example for Beginners


GO

Author: Tuan Nguyen
Reviewer: Deepak Prasad

"Hello, world!" in any programming language is the very first basic program. You can also read our Getting started with GOLANG | Write your first GO Code for more information.

Let's use the following steps to create the first Go program:

  • Install Go (if you haven't already).
  • Write some simple "Hello, world!" code.
  • Use the go command to run your code.

 

Install Golang

Follow the Download and install steps in the official documents.

 

Create your first Golang Hello World program

Set up the package

You should also learn about golang packaging. Create a new source code folder for a new project. For example, use the following commands in Linux environment:

mkdir hello

When your code imports packages contained in other modules, you manage those dependencies through your code's own module. That module is defined by a go.mod file that tracks the modules that provide those packages. That go.mod file stays with your code, including in your source code repository.

To enable dependency tracking for your code by creating a go.mod file, run the go mod init command, giving it the name of the module your code will be in. The name is the module's module path.

In actual development, the module path will typically be the repository location where your source code will be kept. For example, the module path might be github.com/mymodule. If you plan to publish your module for others to use, the module path must be a location from which Go tools can download your module. For more about naming a module with a module path, see Managing dependencies.

For this tutorial, run the following command:

go mod init example/hello 
go: creating new go.mod: module example/hello

Next step, you have to create a file hello.go in the above folder to write your code.

 

Your first Hello, world! code

First, declare the main package into your program:

package main

The package declaration must come first in every program. To organize and reuse code in the Go programming language, packages are needed. Here, the package main tells the compiler to use an executable program rather than a shared library when building the package. It acts as the program's initial point and holds its primary function.

After adding main package, import fmt package in your program. This is one of the standard library packages you got with Go installation.

import (
"fmt"
)

Write the Go language code to print "hello world" in the main function now:

func main() {
    fmt.Println("Hello, world!")
}

Explanation:

  • func: In the Go language, func is used to define functions.
  • main(): The main function in the Go programming language is called when a program is run; it has no parameters and returns nothing.
  • fmt: The fmt package contains a function called Println() that is used to display the content to the console log
  • func Println(a ...any) (n int, err error): Println formats using the default formats for its operands and writes to standard output. Spaces are always added between operands and a newline is appended. It returns the number of bytes written and any write error encountered.

Full "Hello, world!" example code:

// first go program
package main

import "fmt"

// main function
func main() {

	fmt.Println("Hello, world!")
}

Output:

Hello, world!

 

How to Run Golang Program?

A Go compiler is required to run a Go program. After you installed Go compiler, you can check your compiler version and run your go file with the command line:

Golang Hello World Example for Beginners

The go run command is one of many go commands you'll use to get things done with Go. Use the following command to get a list of the others:

go help

Output:

Golang Hello World Example for Beginners

 

Summary

In this tutorial, I have shown you how to create your first Golang Hello World program. You can modify our code below to print out something such as your name, and your age, ....

 

References

https://pkg.go.dev/fmt
https://go.dev/doc/install

 

Tuan Nguyen

Tuan Nguyen

He is proficient in Golang, Python, Java, MongoDB, Selenium, Spring Boot, Kubernetes, Scrapy, API development, Docker, Data Scraping, PrimeFaces, Linux, Data Structures, and Data Mining. With expertise spanning these technologies, he develops robust solutions and implements efficient data processing and management strategies across various projects and platforms. You can connect with him on his LinkedIn profile.

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