This tutorial will guide you through writing your first program in Swift, the 'Hello, World!' program. The aim of this tutorial is to help you learn the basic syntax of Swift and how to create a simple program. By the end of this tutorial, you should be able to output 'Hello, World!' in the console using Swift.
What the user will learn
- Basic structure of a Swift program
- How to print text to the console
Prerequisites
- A text editor (like Xcode)
- Basic understanding of programming concepts
Swift is a general-purpose, multi-paradigm, compiled programming language developed by Apple for iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS. 'Hello, World!' is a simple program that outputs 'Hello, World!' to the console. It's a great place to start learning a new language, as it introduces you to the basic syntax and structure of the language.
Best practices and tips
- Swift code is case sensitive. Be careful with your use of upper and lower case letters.
- Each statement (or line of code) in Swift ends with a newline, not a semicolon.
The following is the 'Hello, World!' program in Swift.
// This is a comment. Comments are ignored by Swift and are just for humans to read.
// The main function is a special function where your program starts execution.
print("Hello, World!")
// This line of code prints 'Hello, World!' to the console.
When you run this program, you should see the following output in your console:
Hello, World!
In this tutorial, you have learned how to write a simple program in Swift that prints 'Hello, World!' to the console. You have learned about the print function, which is used to output text to the console, and how to write comments in Swift.
Next steps for learning
- Learn about variables and constants in Swift
- Learn about data types in Swift
- Learn about control structures in Swift (if statements, for loops, etc.)
Additional resources
- Official Swift documentation
- Swift for Beginners
Exercise 1: Write a program that prints 'Hello, Swift!' to the console.
Solution:
print("Hello, Swift!")
This uses the print function to output 'Hello, Swift!' to the console.
Exercise 2: Write a program that prints your name to the console.
Solution:
print("Your name")
Replace 'Your name' with your actual name. This will output your name to the console.
Tips for further practice
- Try changing the text that gets printed to the console.
- Try adding more print statements to your program.