haxe Getting started with haxe Hello World

Example

Requirements

1. A version of the Haxe toolkit must be installed
2. Haxe must be present in your system path
3. Command line must be accessible

Code

Navigate to a desired project directory and create a Test.hx source file with the following content:

class Test {
    static function main() {
        trace("Hello world");
    }
}

Haxe source files are called modules. A module should define a type (abstract, class, enum, interface, or typedef) with the same identifier as the module name - in this case the Test class. Once that requirement is met, a module can define an arbitrary number of different types.

Haxe programs require an entry point, as denoted by the static main function. The class implementing the entry point is the startup class or main class. Again, in this case the main class is the Test class.

The trace() function is a general purpose logging function exposed to the global namespace for the sake of convenience. It outputs to the target language's standard output handle (e.g. browser console for JavaScript, command line for C++). See the API documentation for more information.

Execution

Navigate to the project folder from your command line. Test to see if Haxe is configured in your environment by calling:

haxe --help

The Haxe interpreter can be used to test code that does not rely on any specific target language API. Use the interpreter by calling:

haxe -main Test --interp

Remember, the Test module contains the Test startup class, which is why -main Test is passed to the compiler.

Haxe sources can compile (transpile) to sources / bytecodes of several different languages. The following table displays the target language, compiler flag, argument type, and compilation result. Use it by calling:

haxe -main Test [flag] [argument].

Language	Flag	Argument	Result
ActionScript 3	-as3	Directory	Source
C#	-cs	Directory	Source + optional bytecode (.exe)
C++	-cpp	Directory	Source + optional binary (native)
Flash	-swf	File	Bytecode (.swf)
HL	-hl	File	Source
Lua	-lua	File	Source
Java	-java	Directory	Source + optional bytecode (.jar)
JavaScript	-js	File	Source
Neko	-neko	File	Bytecode (.n)
PHP	-php	Directory	Source
Python	-python	File	Source
HashLink	-hl	File	Bytecode (.hl)

Note that the path arguments here are relative to the path haxe was called from. The optional bytecode/binary outputs can be opt-outed by adding the -D no-compilation flags, in order to avoid an additional compilation step involving calling the target language's compiler.

References

• API documentation for haxe.Log
• "Hello world" entry in the Haxe Code Cookbook