Hello, World! in C Language

Every programming language typically starts with printing “Hello, World!”C is a general-purpose, efficient, low-level programming language, despite being decades old, it remains vibrant and consistently ranks in the top three of programming language rankings. It is often referred to as the “God programming language” because many modern programming languages (such as C++, Java, C#, Go, etc.) have been directly or indirectly influenced by it.The table below shows the top ten programming languages in the TIOBE index as of August 2025

// Include input-output header file
#include <stdio.h>
// Main function, the entry point of the program
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
    // Print function
    printf("Hello, World!\n");
    // Function execution completed, return 0
    return 0;
}

• <span><span>#include</span><span> ...</span></span>: Preprocessing directive used to include header files.<span><span>stdio.h</span></span> contains the declaration of the <span><span>printf</span></span> function.

• <span><span>int main()</span></span>: The main function, every C program must have exactly one <span><span>main</span></span> function, the program starts executing from here.

• <span><span>printf(...)</span></span>: A standard library function used for formatted output.

• <span><span>return 0;</span></span>: Indicates that the <span><span>main</span></span> function has ended normally.

In Linux environments like Ubuntu, you can use the gcc compiler to compile the source code into an executable file.

In Windows systems, you can use Dev C++ tool.

$ gcc -o helloworld helloworld.c
$ ./helloworld
Hello, World!
$ file helloworld.c
helloworld.c: C source, ASCII text
$ file helloworld
helloworld: ELF 64-bit LSB pie executable, ARM aarch64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib/ld-linux-aarch64.so.1, BuildID[sha1]=edbba09612661167c8306e75be0790935e5790a4, for GNU/Linux 3.7.0, not stripped

<span><span>gcc -o helloworld helloworld.c</span></span> gcc is the compile command. -o, o stands for output, followed by the name of the executable file helloworld helloworld.c is the source code file to be compiled.

Using the file command, you can see that the format of the source code file helloworld.c is C source, ASCII text.

The format of the executable file is ELF 64-bit LSB pie executable.

In Linux systems, ELF (Executable and Linkable Format) files are the standard format for executable files, object files, and shared libraries. It defines the structure of binary files, allowing the operating system to load and execute programs correctly.