513
\$\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
  • 3
    \$\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
  • 6
    \$\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

956 Answers 956

1
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1
\$\begingroup\$

[], 20 bytes

(({<[Hello, World!})

Don't ask me how this works.

\$\endgroup\$
3
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ How does this work? \$\endgroup\$
    – Maya
    Apr 29, 2017 at 17:41
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @NieDzejkob Good question! \$\endgroup\$ Apr 29, 2017 at 17:43
  • \$\begingroup\$ Here is some documentation on how this works. It works because (({<x) prints the value of x. What remains is to convert "Hello, World!" into something printable by putting it in the declareDataX function [x} like [Hello, World!}. Therefore the program is (({<[Hello, World!}). At least I think that is how it works. \$\endgroup\$
    – NK1406
    Dec 15, 2018 at 20:10
1
\$\begingroup\$

𝔼𝕊𝕄𝕚𝕟, 19 17 bytes

ô`Hello, World!`

The “” string construction actually ends up using more bytes.

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Yay, someone else is using my language! You can do ô`Hello, world` too. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 2, 2015 at 0:08
1
\$\begingroup\$

Aeolbonn, 14 bytes

:Hello, World!

: is the standard output mechanism.

\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

ABCD, 390 bytes

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADAAAAAAADDAAADBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBDBBBBBBBBBBBBDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADAAADBBBBBBDBBBBBBBBDBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBDBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBD

Equivalent to +++++etc+++.+++++etc+++.+++++++..+++.-----etc in brainfuck.

\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

Dogless, 13 bytes

Hello, World!

There is no |, so the program just terminates and outputs itself.

\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

BrainfuckXT, 16 bytes

{Hello, World!}$

{...} puts a string on the tape, and $ outputs it.

\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

Thue, 24 bytes

a::=~Hello, World!
::=
a

When a is encountered in the last line, the string is printed.

\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

Amiga E, 38 bytes

PROC main() IS WriteF('Hello, World!')

WriteF is the standard output mechanism.

\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

A:;, 19 bytes

b:Hello, World!;p:b

Sets b to the string and prints it.

\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

Kipple, 67 17 bytes

"Hello, World!">o

Sends the string to o using the preprocessor.

\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

Version, 37 bytes

A:OUTPUT="Hello, World!"
B:IGNORE="*"

The first line prints the string. The second line tells the interpreter to ignore all lines, to prevent an infinite loop.

\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

Augeas, 42 bytes

module A=let _=print_string"Hello, World!"

I'm writing this because ℝaphink won't.

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • \$\begingroup\$ If it got someone else to post an Augeas answer, I'm happy with that :-) \$\endgroup\$
    – raphink
    Oct 14, 2015 at 5:08
1
\$\begingroup\$

Geom++, 17 bytes

" Hello, World! "

Yes, the spaces around the string are necessary.

\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

Lines, 13 bytes

Hello, World!

There are no control characters, so the string is just output.

\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

Gray Snail, 22 bytes

OUTPUT "Hello, World!"

OUTPUT just outputs the string.

\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

PureStack, 18 bytes

"Hello, World!"
!~

Pushes "Hello, World!" to the stack and prints it.

\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

Blank, 64 bytes

[33][100][108][114][111][87][32][44][111][108]{:}[101][72]{p}{@}

Hint: Read the interpreter / compiler to ensure that you use all features. This esolangs page, for example, used to exclude the p instruction.

\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

EXCON, 137 bytes

<<<^<<<^!:^<<^<<<^<^!:<<^<^<<^<^!!:^<^<^<^<<^<^!:<<^<^<<^!:<<<<<^!:^<^<^<<^<<^!:^<^<^<^<<^<^!:<^<<<^<^<^!:<<^<^<<^<^!:<<^<<<^<^!:^<<<<<^!

Simple bit-hacking.

\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

96, 44 bytes

72,101,108:,@,111,44,32,87,111,114,@,100,33"

Uses the accumulator to store the L.

\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

Jumper, 59 bytes

=72>=101>=108>=108>=111>=44>=32>=87>=111>=114>=108>=100>=33
\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

Milky Way 1.0.0, 16 bytes

"Hello, World!"!

or

"Hello, World!">

Explanation

"Hello, World!"   # push "Hello, World!" to the stack
               !  # output the TOS

or

"Hello, World!"   # push "Hello, World!" to the stack
               >  # rotate the stack rightward.
                    if nothing is output manually,
                    the bottom stack item is output
\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

Dirst, 21 bytes

dss_Hello, World!.txt

Note: this must be run in a system where ! is allowed in filenames.

\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

Elixir, 22 bytes

IO.puts"Hello, World!"
\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

Pig, 27 bytes

/dev/stdoutPIGHello, World!

Requires a Unix-like OS to run. Pig is a simple language in which a program is a filename, followed by PIG, followed by anything else, which writes the string to the file specified by the filename. In this case, I use the tactic of writing the output to /dev/stdout, outputting the string. /dev/tty outputs the string, but it requires a console window to work, and doesn't pipe output correctly.

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • \$\begingroup\$ Not a programming language. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 12, 2015 at 19:58
1
\$\begingroup\$

C, 32 bytes

main(){printf("Hello, World!");}

Tested on C99 Strict, compiler will generate a warning that there is no return-type, and int is assumed.

What actually happens in most environments is that the return value from the last printf is left in the register used for return values.

Quote Reference

In our case the printf("Hello, World!") is the only statement in our program, which will set 13 in the registry for return values.

In most environments, EXIT_FAILURE is usually 1 as in gcc, which means that on most environments this will not write to STDERR.

\$\endgroup\$
3
  • \$\begingroup\$ It seems we already have a shorter C solution. Your elaboration is nice though, so I guess it's your call whether you keep this answer or not. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 15, 2015 at 8:59
  • \$\begingroup\$ @MartinBüttner is it okay to provide an answer that has a requirement on how to compile or a specific file name ? \$\endgroup\$
    – Khaled.K
    Dec 15, 2015 at 10:02
  • \$\begingroup\$ Answers that only work with specific compilers are fine (for the purposes of code golf here, languages are actually defined by their implementations). Specific command-line options and file names are legitimate too but need to be added to the byte count. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 15, 2015 at 10:05
1
\$\begingroup\$

Algol-M, 36 bytes

BEGIN
WRITE("Hello, World!");
END

CP/M nostalgia...

B>type hello.alg
BEGIN
WRITE("Hello, World!");
END

B>algolm hello
ALGOL-M COMPILER VERS 1.1
   0 ERROR(S) DETECTED

B>runalg hello
ALGOL-M INTERPRETER-VERS 1.0


Hello, World!

B>_

A problem?

There is more output than just "Hello, World!" but that output is not caused by the program itself, it is caused by the interpreter.

\$\endgroup\$
2
  • \$\begingroup\$ In this challenge, not even extra interpreter output is allowed. Is there a way to disable it? \$\endgroup\$ Dec 25, 2015 at 12:33
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Martin Büttner: Hey chef... I've no problem deleting this solution if that not-by-my-program-output really is a probem... or use your moderator magic power and delete it... definitely my life does not depend on this solution... ;-) \$\endgroup\$
    – user19214
    Dec 25, 2015 at 17:23
1
\$\begingroup\$

Befalse, 41 bytes

I want to learn this language, but it's so confusing ):

0"!dlrow olleH"!/$?\
                \. /

Demo (paste into the the box and click "Show", then click "Run".)

\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

SPL, 91 bytes

File hello.spl:

PROGRAM h;BYTE w='Hello, World!$';PROCEDURE BDOS(WORD f,s);EXTERNAL;BEGIN BDOS(9,@w) END h.

With some CRLFs (99 bytes):

PROGRAM h;
BYTE w='Hello, World!$';
PROCEDURE BDOS(WORD f,s);EXTERNAL;
BEGIN
BDOS(9,@w)
END h.

(both without crlf after last line)


CP/M nostalgia...

E>type hello.spl
PROGRAM h;BYTE w='Hello, World!$';PROCEDURE BDOS(WORD f,s);EXTERNAL;BEGIN BDOS(9,@w) END h.
E>do c hello
SuperSUB V1.1

E>; COMPILE AN SPL PROGRAM
E>SPL HELLO

SPL V-1.03.03.10 (17-Dec-06 13:41:11)
No errors. Code = 31. Free memory = 30081.

E>L80 HELLO,HELLO/N/E

Link-80  3.44  09-Dec-81  Copyright (c) 1981 Microsoft

Data    0103    01D6    <  211>

46887 Bytes Free
[0111   01D6        1]

E>ERA HELLO.REL
E>hello
Hello, World!
E> _
\$\endgroup\$
1
  • \$\begingroup\$ Can the downvoter please explain why downvoting was needed? Can it be done shorter in SPL? \$\endgroup\$
    – user19214
    Apr 28, 2018 at 8:15
1
\$\begingroup\$

Genie, 28 bytes

File hello.gs:

init
        print "Hello, World!"

(tab indented, needs final newline)

Compile & run:

$ valac hello.gs
$ ./hello
Hello, World!
\$\endgroup\$
1
\$\begingroup\$

Pilot, 15 bytes

t:Hello, World!

(no trailing newline is ok for the Pilot implementation I used)


CP/M nostalgia...

A>type hello.plt
t:Hello, World!
A>do pilot/pr hello
SuperSUB V1.1

A>: SUBMIT PILOT/P WITH REAL TYPE SUPPORT
A>PILOT/P HELLO
PILOT/P version 2.5, 02/26/84
READING FROM HELLO.PLT
WRITING TO   HELLO.PAS
Translating: HELLO

A>ERA OLD.HDR
No file
A>REN OLD.HDR=PILOT/P.HDR
A>REN PILOT/P.HDR=PILOT/PR.HDR
A>PASCAL HELLO
InterSystems Pascal v - 4.0
HELLO        1---
VLENGTH     27-
MEMAVAIL    28--
SETLENGT    30-
LENGTH      31-
INDEX       33-
POS         34-
UCASE       35-
LCASE       36-
DELETE      37-
COPY        38-
INSERT      39--
REPLACE     40-
CONCAT      41-
STR         42-
IVALUE      43-
HALT        44-
ISALPHA     45-
ISUPPER     46-
ISLOWER     47-
ISDIGIT     48-
ISSPACE     49--
TOUPPER     50-
TOLOWER     51-
KEYIN       52-
KEYBOARD    53-
DWRITE      54-
CONSTAT     55-
CONCHAR     56-
GOTOXY      57-
VAL         58-
RANDOM      59--
RND         63-
RANDOMIZ    65-
INITIALI    69-----
WAIT       102---
MATCH      124-------
HELLO      185-
0 compilation error(s).

A>ERA HELLO.LST
A>REN PILOT/PR.HDR=PILOT/P.HDR
A>REN PILOT/P.HDR=OLD.HDR
A>ASMBL MAIN,HELLO/REL
Pascal/Z run-time support interface ASMBLE v-7d

0 errors.  312 symbols generated.  Space for 2819 more symbols.
4275 characters are stored in 44 macros.
1680 bytes of program code.

A>ERA HELLO.SRC
A>LINK /N:HELLO CHAIN HELLO ASL/S/E
LINK version 2b
Load mode
Generate a COM file
Lo = 0100   Hi = 1A32   Start = 0172   Save  26 blocks

A>ERA HELLO.REL
A>ERA HELLO.PAS
A>hello
Hello, World!

A>_
\$\endgroup\$
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