The classic example program for the C language is Hello World. Here is the source code for our version of the program:

[source,c]
----
#include <stdio.h>

int
main (void)
{
  printf ("Hello, world!\n");
  return 0;
}
----

This compiles the source code in 'hello.c' to machine code and stores it in an executable file 'hello'. The output file for the machine code is specified using the -o option. This option is usually given as the last argument on the command line. If it is omitted, the output is written to a default file called 'a.out'.

Note that if a file with the same name as the executable file already exists in the current directory it will be overwritten.

The option -Wall turns on all the most commonly-used compiler warnings---it is recommended that you always use this option! There are many other warning options which will be discussed in later chapters, but -Wall is the most important. GCC will not produce any warnings unless they are enabled. Compiler warnings are an essential aid in detecting problems when programming in C and C++.

In this case, the compiler does not produce any warnings with the -Wall option, since the program is completely valid. Source code which does not produce any warnings is said to compile cleanly.