Running Hello World Locally (Xcode & Terminal)

What is Xcode?

Xcode is an IDE, Integrated Development Environment, containing a suite of software development tools developed by Apple for developing software for iOS, watchOS, macOS, iPadOS, and tvOS.

It was first released in 2003 and the latest stable release is version 11.0 and is available via the Mac App Store for download.

👁 Xcode Screenshot

Typically Swift source code files are given the suffix:

• .swift (ex: Hello.swift)

Running Locally using Terminal:

Sometimes it is more convenient to run Swift code in the terminal.

On a Mac, it’s called the Terminal and looks like this: 👁 Black background with a simple white terminal prompt symbol consisting of a greater-than sign and a dash, resembling '>-'.
On Windows, it’s called the Command Prompt and looks like this: 👁 Black background with white text showing the Windows command prompt symbol 'C:\'.

Let’s see how we can do it in a macOS terminal:

$ swift --version

Compile:

$ swiftc Hello.swift

swiftc and the source file name.

Execute:

$ ./Hello

./ and the executable file name.

Compiling (xkcd)

👁 xkcd: Compiling

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