Running Hello World Locally (Xcode & Terminal)

Codecademy Team
Run your Hello World Swift program locally using Xcode or 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 the Mac, it’s called the Terminal. On Windows, it’s called the Command Prompt.

Let’s see how we can do it in 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