517
\$\begingroup\$

So... uh... this is a bit embarrassing. But we don't have a plain "Hello, World!" challenge yet (despite having 35 variants tagged with , and counting). While this is not the most interesting code golf in the common languages, finding the shortest solution in certain esolangs can be a serious challenge. For instance, to my knowledge it is not known whether the shortest possible Brainfuck solution has been found yet.

Furthermore, while all of Wikipedia (the Wikipedia entry has been deleted but there is a copy at archive.org ), esolangs and Rosetta Code have lists of "Hello, World!" programs, none of these are interested in having the shortest for each language (there is also this GitHub repository). If we want to be a significant site in the code golf community, I think we should try and create the ultimate catalogue of shortest "Hello, World!" programs (similar to how our basic quine challenge contains some of the shortest known quines in various languages). So let's do this!

The Rules

  • Each submission must be a full program.
  • The program must take no input, and print Hello, World! to STDOUT (this exact byte stream, including capitalization and punctuation) plus an optional trailing newline, and nothing else.
  • The program must not write anything to STDERR.
  • If anyone wants to abuse this by creating a language where the empty program prints Hello, World!, then congrats, they just paved the way for a very boring answer.

    Note that there must be an interpreter so the submission can be tested. It is allowed (and even encouraged) to write this interpreter yourself for a previously unimplemented language.

  • Submissions are scored in bytes, in an appropriate (pre-existing) encoding, usually (but not necessarily) UTF-8. Some languages, like Folders, are a bit tricky to score - if in doubt, please ask on Meta.
  • This is not about finding the language with the shortest "Hello, World!" program. This is about finding the shortest "Hello, World!" program in every language. Therefore, I will not mark any answer as "accepted".
  • If your language of choice is a trivial variant of another (potentially more popular) language which already has an answer (think BASIC or SQL dialects, Unix shells or trivial Brainfuck-derivatives like Alphuck), consider adding a note to the existing answer that the same or a very similar solution is also the shortest in the other language.

As a side note, please don't downvote boring (but valid) answers in languages where there is not much to golf - these are still useful to this question as it tries to compile a catalogue as complete as possible. However, do primarily upvote answers in languages where the authors actually had to put effort into golfing the code.

For inspiration, check the Hello World Collection.

The Catalogue

The Stack Snippet at the bottom of this post generates the catalogue from the answers a) as a list of shortest solution per language and b) as an overall leaderboard.

To make sure that your answer shows up, please start your answer with a headline, using the following Markdown template:

## Language Name, N bytes

where N is the size of your submission. If you improve your score, you can keep old scores in the headline, by striking them through. For instance:

## Ruby, <s>104</s> <s>101</s> 96 bytes

If there you want to include multiple numbers in your header (e.g. because your score is the sum of two files or you want to list interpreter flag penalties separately), make sure that the actual score is the last number in the header:

## Perl, 43 + 2 (-p flag) = 45 bytes

You can also make the language name a link which will then show up in the snippet:

## [><>](https://esolangs.org/wiki/Fish), 121 bytes

/* Configuration */

var QUESTION_ID = 55422; // Obtain this from the url
// It will be like https://XYZ.stackexchange.com/questions/QUESTION_ID/... on any question page
var ANSWER_FILTER = "!t)IWYnsLAZle2tQ3KqrVveCRJfxcRLe";
var COMMENT_FILTER = "!)Q2B_A2kjfAiU78X(md6BoYk";
var OVERRIDE_USER = 8478; // This should be the user ID of the challenge author.

/* App */

var answers = [], answers_hash, answer_ids, answer_page = 1, more_answers = true, comment_page;

function answersUrl(index) {
  return "https://api.stackexchange.com/2.2/questions/" +  QUESTION_ID + "/answers?page=" + index + "&pagesize=100&order=desc&sort=creation&site=codegolf&filter=" + ANSWER_FILTER;
}

function commentUrl(index, answers) {
  return "https://api.stackexchange.com/2.2/answers/" + answers.join(';') + "/comments?page=" + index + "&pagesize=100&order=desc&sort=creation&site=codegolf&filter=" + COMMENT_FILTER;
}

function getAnswers() {
  jQuery.ajax({
    url: answersUrl(answer_page++),
    method: "get",
    dataType: "jsonp",
    crossDomain: true,
    success: function (data) {
      answers.push.apply(answers, data.items);
      answers_hash = [];
      answer_ids = [];
      data.items.forEach(function(a) {
        a.comments = [];
        var id = +a.share_link.match(/\d+/);
        answer_ids.push(id);
        answers_hash[id] = a;
      });
      if (!data.has_more) more_answers = false;
      comment_page = 1;
      getComments();
    }
  });
}

function getComments() {
  jQuery.ajax({
    url: commentUrl(comment_page++, answer_ids),
    method: "get",
    dataType: "jsonp",
    crossDomain: true,
    success: function (data) {
      data.items.forEach(function(c) {
        if (c.owner.user_id === OVERRIDE_USER)
          answers_hash[c.post_id].comments.push(c);
      });
      if (data.has_more) getComments();
      else if (more_answers) getAnswers();
      else process();
    }
  });  
}

getAnswers();

var SCORE_REG = /<h\d>\s*([^\n,<]*(?:<(?:[^\n>]*>[^\n<]*<\/[^\n>]*>)[^\n,<]*)*),.*?(\d+)(?=[^\n\d<>]*(?:<(?:s>[^\n<>]*<\/s>|[^\n<>]+>)[^\n\d<>]*)*<\/h\d>)/;

var OVERRIDE_REG = /^Override\s*header:\s*/i;

function getAuthorName(a) {
  return a.owner.display_name;
}

function process() {
  var valid = [];
  
  answers.forEach(function(a) {
    var body = a.body;
    a.comments.forEach(function(c) {
      if(OVERRIDE_REG.test(c.body))
        body = '<h1>' + c.body.replace(OVERRIDE_REG, '') + '</h1>';
    });
    
    var match = body.match(SCORE_REG);
    if (match)
      valid.push({
        user: getAuthorName(a),
        size: +match[2],
        language: match[1],
        link: a.share_link,
      });
    else console.log(body);
  });
  
  valid.sort(function (a, b) {
    var aB = a.size,
        bB = b.size;
    return aB - bB
  });

  var languages = {};
  var place = 1;
  var lastSize = null;
  var lastPlace = 1;
  valid.forEach(function (a) {
    if (a.size != lastSize)
      lastPlace = place;
    lastSize = a.size;
    ++place;
    
    var answer = jQuery("#answer-template").html();
    answer = answer.replace("{{PLACE}}", lastPlace + ".")
                   .replace("{{NAME}}", a.user)
                   .replace("{{LANGUAGE}}", a.language)
                   .replace("{{SIZE}}", a.size)
                   .replace("{{LINK}}", a.link);
    answer = jQuery(answer);
    jQuery("#answers").append(answer);

    var lang = a.language;
    lang = jQuery('<a>'+lang+'</a>').text();
    
    languages[lang] = languages[lang] || {lang: a.language, lang_raw: lang, user: a.user, size: a.size, link: a.link};
  });

  var langs = [];
  for (var lang in languages)
    if (languages.hasOwnProperty(lang))
      langs.push(languages[lang]);

  langs.sort(function (a, b) {
    if (a.lang_raw.toLowerCase() > b.lang_raw.toLowerCase()) return 1;
    if (a.lang_raw.toLowerCase() < b.lang_raw.toLowerCase()) return -1;
    return 0;
  });

  for (var i = 0; i < langs.length; ++i)
  {
    var language = jQuery("#language-template").html();
    var lang = langs[i];
    language = language.replace("{{LANGUAGE}}", lang.lang)
                       .replace("{{NAME}}", lang.user)
                       .replace("{{SIZE}}", lang.size)
                       .replace("{{LINK}}", lang.link);
    language = jQuery(language);
    jQuery("#languages").append(language);
  }

}
body {
  text-align: left !important;
  display: block !important;
}

#answer-list {
  padding: 10px;
  width: 290px;
  float: left;
}

#language-list {
  padding: 10px;
  width: 500px;
  float: left;
}

table thead {
  font-weight: bold;
}

table td {
  padding: 5px;
}
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://cdn.sstatic.net/Sites/codegolf/all.css?v=ffb5d0584c5f">
<div id="language-list">
  <h2>Shortest Solution by Language</h2>
  <table class="language-list">
    <thead>
      <tr><td>Language</td><td>User</td><td>Score</td></tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody id="languages">

    </tbody>
  </table>
</div>
<div id="answer-list">
  <h2>Leaderboard</h2>
  <table class="answer-list">
    <thead>
      <tr><td></td><td>Author</td><td>Language</td><td>Size</td></tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody id="answers">

    </tbody>
  </table>
</div>
<table style="display: none">
  <tbody id="answer-template">
    <tr><td>{{PLACE}}</td><td>{{NAME}}</td><td>{{LANGUAGE}}</td><td>{{SIZE}}</td><td><a href="{{LINK}}">Link</a></td></tr>
  </tbody>
</table>
<table style="display: none">
  <tbody id="language-template">
    <tr><td>{{LANGUAGE}}</td><td>{{NAME}}</td><td>{{SIZE}}</td><td><a href="{{LINK}}">Link</a></td></tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

\$\endgroup\$
21
  • 4
    \$\begingroup\$ @isaacg No it doesn't. I think there would be some interesting languages where it's not obvious whether primality testing is possible. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 28, 2015 at 13:56
  • 7
    \$\begingroup\$ If the same program, such as "Hello, World!", is the shortest in many different and unrelated languages, should it be posted separately? \$\endgroup\$ Aug 28, 2015 at 15:33
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ @mbomb007 Well it's hidden by default because the three code blocks take up a lot of space. I could minify them so that they are a single line each, but I'd rather keep the code maintainable in case bugs come up. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 28, 2015 at 19:34
  • 8
    \$\begingroup\$ @ETHproductions "Unlike our usual rules, feel free to use a language (or language version) even if it's newer than this challenge." Publishing the language and an implementation before posting it would definitely be helpful though. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 29, 2015 at 23:01
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ @MartinEnder ... Almost. If two BF solutions have the same size, the one with smaller lexicographical order will take smaller number of bytes in Unary. Of course the smallest Unary solution translated to BF is guaranteed to be smallest. \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    May 20, 2018 at 10:20

976 Answers 976

0
\$\begingroup\$

Arc, 21 bytes

(prn "Hello, World!")
\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

reticular, 17 bytes

"Hello, World!"p;

This has a trailing newline.

This doesn't:

"Hello, World!"o;
\$\endgroup\$
2
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Is there any documentation for Reticular? \$\endgroup\$
    – Chance
    Jan 13, 2017 at 0:45
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Chance yup. Follow the link in the header, then go to the Github wiki. \$\endgroup\$ Jan 13, 2017 at 1:08
0
\$\begingroup\$

Logy, 32 bytes

main[_]->print["Hello, World!"];

Define the rule main printing Hello, World!.

EDIT: Now puts need to be included, so I need to use print

\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

Y, 19 bytes

∅O("Hello, World!")

Call the special function O (output) with the string Hello, World!

\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

Ruby, 19 Bytes

$><<"Hello, World!"
\$\endgroup\$
5
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ The rules sais it should print "this exact byte stream, including capitalisation and punctuation) plus an optional trailing newline, and nothing else". Your solution prints the string with qoutes around it. \$\endgroup\$
    – daniero
    Oct 31, 2016 at 14:15
  • \$\begingroup\$ @daniero Fixed There is one alternate answer but while on repl it also prints additonal info but when run from a script outputs exact answer $><<"Hello, World!" \$\endgroup\$ Oct 31, 2016 at 14:22
  • \$\begingroup\$ @daniero Sorry, pressed enter without completing the response ruby -e "$><<"Hello, World!" \$\endgroup\$ Oct 31, 2016 at 14:23
  • \$\begingroup\$ Your solution is now identical to this one :P codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/55443/4372. But the $><< variant is the same length, so I'd go with that, unless that solution also already exists \$\endgroup\$
    – daniero
    Oct 31, 2016 at 14:33
  • \$\begingroup\$ @daniero Modified the answer :] \$\endgroup\$ Oct 31, 2016 at 14:46
0
\$\begingroup\$

JLisp, 23 bytes

(write "Hello, World!")

Call the write function, which print a text to stdout

\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

Stackish, 20 bytes

Hey, a competing answer!

"!dlroW ,olleH",l15'

Simple stack stuff.

\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

NetLogo, 20 bytes

print"Hello, World!"
\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

Lily, 22 bytes

Pretty darn similar to a lot of other languages.

print("Hello, World!")

Here's a Tio example to play with.

\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

2sable, 14 bytes

"Hello, World!

Extremely straightforward.

Try it online!

\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

fish, 18 bytes

echo Hello, World!

Try it online!

\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

PicoLisp, 26 bytes

(prin"Hello, World!")(bye)

Try it online!

\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

Racket, 24 bytes

(display"Hello, World!")

Try it online!

\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

Glee, 15 bytes

"Hello, World!"

This creates a character vector/string, which gets printed to the output.

\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

MATLAB, 20 bytes

disp 'Hello, World!'

This is one byte shorter than the standard disp('Hello, World!').

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • 4
    \$\begingroup\$ disp 'Hello, World!' is one byte shorter! \$\endgroup\$ Mar 3, 2017 at 13:56
0
\$\begingroup\$

Small, 1552 bytes

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++.+++++++..+++.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++.+++.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++.

A joke language at https://esolangs.org

\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

Pyffman 1, 16 bytes

The code contains lots of unprintable characters, so here's a hexdump:

00000000: 78c2 40a6 9a7a 5d51 7d8e 87cf 617d cf3d  [email protected]]Q}...a}.=

To obtain the original source code, put the hexdump in a file and call xxd -r on it.

\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

Foam, 17 bytes

<'|Hello, World!|

<' grabs the next token from the source code an outputs it with a trailing newline. The next token is Hello, World! (It is wrapped in bars so that the space can be added without it being treated like another token.

\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

nouse, 321 bytes

I can't figure out from the spec how to specify operands in Line Noise syntax. If anyone knows please comment.

Here is the Assembly syntax version:

cut 0,72,write 0,paste 0
cut 0,101,write 0,paste 0
cut 0,108,write 0,write 0,paste 0
cut 0,111,write 0,paste 0
cut 0,44,write 0,paste 0
cut 0,32,write 0,paste 0
cut 0,87,write 0,paste 0
cut 0,111,write 0,paste 0
cut 0,114,write 0,paste 0
cut 0,108,write 0,paste 0
cut 0,100,write 0,paste 0
cut 0,33,write 0,paste 0
swap 0
\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

HTML & JS (w/ jQuery), 85 bytes

<b><script src="//code.jquery.com/jquery.min.js"><script>$("b").html("Hello, World!")
\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

Subterra, 30 bytes

"Hello, World!"w[0>]{bct1-}
\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

axo, 22 bytes

"!dlroW ,olleeH">[(#<\

I'm not sure why I had to put a double e in there. But hey, it works.

Try it online!

\$\endgroup\$
3
  • \$\begingroup\$ Invalid, output contains non-ASCII characters (i.e. not just Hello, World!) \$\endgroup\$
    – ASCII-only
    Apr 12, 2018 at 13:00
  • \$\begingroup\$ @ASCII-only it worked on the version on TIO when I made it. \$\endgroup\$
    – Okx
    Apr 13, 2018 at 17:58
  • \$\begingroup\$ It never worked, it was just that TIO didn't show the non-ASCII characters. I think Dennis recently changed it so both input and output work better with non-ASCII characters. \$\endgroup\$
    – ASCII-only
    Apr 14, 2018 at 1:16
0
\$\begingroup\$

JQuery, 222 214 194 147 113 bytes

Saved 20 bytes thanks to ais523 and 34 thanks to Matheus Avellar.

<script src="//code.jquery.com/jquery.min.js"/><script>$()(function(){$("body").html("Hello, World!");})</script>

Just because it's JQuery. You can't get enough JQuery :D

\$\endgroup\$
7
  • \$\begingroup\$ Why not shorten the div id to a single character to save some bytes? Also, you might be able to make that a self-closing div. \$\endgroup\$ Mar 6, 2017 at 22:52
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @numbermaniac You can't use self-closing divs in HTML. \$\endgroup\$
    – MD XF
    Mar 7, 2017 at 16:47
  • \$\begingroup\$ Ah, alright then, my mistake. \$\endgroup\$ Mar 8, 2017 at 7:25
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Couldn't you just leave off the closing tags altogether, though? Browsers will add them implicitly (and this is actually specified in the most recent versions of HTML). \$\endgroup\$
    – user62131
    Apr 10, 2017 at 21:47
  • \$\begingroup\$ Here this will work better codegolf wise: <script>$(document).ready(function(){$("#m").html("Hello, World!");});</script><div id="m"><script src="//code.jquery.com/jquery.min.js"/> \$\endgroup\$
    – arodebaugh
    May 9, 2017 at 16:02
0
\$\begingroup\$

Deorst, 15 bytes

'Hello, World!'

Try it online!

Yay for implicit output!

\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

Recursiva, 15 14 bytes

"Hello, World!

Try it online!

This can also be done by explicitly using Por Print operator:

Recursiva, 16 bytes

P"Hello, World!"

Try it online!

\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

Add++, 70 20 bytes

D,f,,"Hello, World!"

Try it online!

Simple function, implicit call and return. You can see the revision history for the old version.

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • \$\begingroup\$ 17? \$\endgroup\$
    – ASCII-only
    Apr 25, 2018 at 6:19
0
\$\begingroup\$

Spaced, 91 bytes

(q="Helo, Wrd!")[1]+q[3]+q[5]+q[5]+q[7]+q[9]+q[9+2]+q[9+4]+q[7]+q[9+6]+q[5]+q[9+8]+q[9+9+1]

Try it online!

\$\endgroup\$
5
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Welcome to the site! Out of curiosity, do you have anything to do with this user? \$\endgroup\$ Nov 8, 2017 at 20:38
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Thanks! No, we just happen to have the same brand of humor. \$\endgroup\$
    – user75917
    Nov 8, 2017 at 22:05
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ That is really funny though \$\endgroup\$
    – user75917
    Nov 9, 2017 at 15:01
  • \$\begingroup\$ Apparently, this is exactly the same as the default Hello World code on TIO. \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Nov 12, 2017 at 4:07
  • \$\begingroup\$ yup, that would be the hello world I wrote for spaced @user202729 \$\endgroup\$ Oct 29, 2018 at 2:57
0
\$\begingroup\$

Implicit, 15 14 bytes

«Hello, World!

Pretty simple. « opens a string, implicit closing ». Implicit output.

Try it online!

\$\endgroup\$
6
  • \$\begingroup\$ 14 bytes \$\endgroup\$ Nov 5, 2017 at 17:07
  • \$\begingroup\$ @cairdcoinheringaahing is the trailing newline not necessary? \$\endgroup\$
    – MD XF
    Nov 5, 2017 at 21:12
  • \$\begingroup\$ Apparently not, according to TIO \$\endgroup\$ Nov 5, 2017 at 21:14
  • \$\begingroup\$ @cairdcoinheringaahing I mean according to the challenge spec. It wants a newline. \$\endgroup\$
    – MD XF
    Nov 5, 2017 at 22:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ From the question: "optional trailing newline" \$\endgroup\$ Nov 5, 2017 at 23:11
0
\$\begingroup\$

NotQuiteThere, 17 bytes

'Hello, World!'-1

Try it online!

\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

SNOBOL4 (CSNOBOL4), 29 28 bytes

 OUTPUT ='Hello, World!'
END

Try it online!

Thanks to Ørjan Johansen for saving a byte!

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • \$\begingroup\$ The space after = can be removed. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 11, 2017 at 20:09

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