Hello, World

Since the release of the book, C Programming Language, most programming books have begun with a simple “Hello, world” example, and in keeping with tradition, here’s the source code for a Scala “Hello, world” example:

object Hello {
    def main(args: Array[String]) = {
        println("Hello, world")
    }
}

Using a text editor, save that source code in a file named Hello.scala. After saving it, run this scalac command at your command line prompt to compile it:

$ scalac Hello.scala

scalac is just like javac, and that command creates two new files:

• Hello$.class
• Hello.class

These are the same types of “.class” bytecode files you create with javac, and they’re ready to work with the JVM.

Now you can run the Hello application with the scala command:

$ scala Hello

Discussion

Here’s the original source code again:

object Hello {
    def main(args: Array[String]) = {
        println("Hello, world")
    }
}

Here’s a short description of that code:

• It defines a method named main inside a Scala object named Hello
• An object is similar to a class, but you specifically use it when you want a single instance of that class
  • If you’re coming to Scala from Java, this means that main is just like a static method (We write more on this later)
• main takes an input parameter named args that is a string array
• Array is a class that wraps the Java array primitive

That Scala code is pretty much the same as this Java code:

public class Hello {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("Hello, world");
    }
}

Going deeper: Scala creates .class files

As we mentioned, when you run the scalac command it creates .class JVM bytecode files. You can see this for yourself. As an example, run this javap command on the Hello.class file:

$ javap Hello.class
Compiled from "Hello.scala"
public final class Hello {
  public static void main(java.lang.String[]);
}

As that output shows, the javap command reads that .class file just as if it was created from Java source code. Scala code runs on the JVM and can use existing Java libraries — and both are terrific benefits for Scala programmers.