A short tutorial - Part 1: Running Wirbel Programs

Let's assume you have successfully installed the Wirbel development environment. If not, please have a look at the Installation procedure.

You have three ways for running a Wirbel program. First let's write one. Please create a file named hello.w containing the following code:

print("Hello World.")

The first way to run this is by simply calling it with wirbel:

user@host> wirbel hello.w
Hello World.

The second way is to make use of the so called shebang line. Edit hello.w like this:

#!/usr/bin/wirbel
print("Hello World.")

Now make you program executable:

user@host> chmod +x hello.w

And feel free to run it like any executable program:

user@host> ./hello.w
Hello World.

So far not much difference from Python or BASH. But Wirbel has a third way: Calling the Wirbel compiler wic and compile the program into machine code. It's really simple. Not a single compiler switch is needed:

user@host> wic hello.w

The compiler creates the file hello, which is directly executable:

user@host> ./hello
Hello World.

hello is a native ELF binary. Don't believe it? See what file tells you:

user@host> file hello
hello: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV),
for GNU/Linux 2.6.8, dynamically linked (uses shared libs), not stripped

As a matter of fact the other two ways of running a Wirbel program automatically call wic to compile the program if the binary is not existant or not up to date and then run it.

By the way: The compiled program hello is stand alone and completely independent from the Wirbel development environment.

Next Chapter: Variables and Types