Python “Hello, World!” Program Explained

The “Hello, World!” program is a simple introductory program often used to teach the basics of a programming language.

You can either watch this video or continue reading this tutorial.

In Python, it’s very a straightforward way to print a message to the screen.

Here is the simple program to print the “Hello, World!” message.

print("Hello, World!")

Output:

Hello, World!

Explanation:

Here’s an explanation of the Python “Hello, World!” program.

• print() is a built-in Python function used to display output on the screen.
• Inside the parentheses, you provide the text you want to display. In this case, it’s the string “Hello, World!”.
• Strings in Python are sequences of characters enclosed in either single (' ') or double (" ") quotes. (We will see the details about the Python string in the upcoming tutorial.)

You can execute the Python code on the console, terminal, command prompt, Python shell, or with an online Python compiler.

When you run this program, it will print “Hello, World!” to the console or command prompt, depending on where you are executing it.

What is the purpose of writing the “Hello, World!” program?

• This is often the first program that everyone writes when learning a new programming language.
• The “Hello, World!” program serves as a basic introduction to Python syntax.
• It helps you to confirm that your development environment is installed, and configured correctly.
• it provides a simple way to check that everything is working as expected and you are ready to dwell in Python programming.

Comparing the Python “Hello, World!” program with C/C++ and Java

To print a “Hello, World!” message in C/C++ or Java, you have to write 5 to 6 lines of code. You have to insert the corresponding library.

Whereas in Python, it is just one line of code.

This is the beauty of Python programming. Python is a very user-friendly and easy-to-learn programming language.

What you can do with the Python print function?

Let’s see some of the interesting examples.

It’s not only about the string, you can also pass the integer or any other numeric value to the “print” function.

print(72)

Output:

72

You can pass multiple text or parameters to the “print” function, separating them with commas (,).

print("Number", 72)

Output:

Number 72

You can also perform mathematical operations in the “print” function.

print("Sum ", 45+72)

Output:

Sum 117

Next time when you want to perform any calculation, don’t use a calculator. Use Python 😉

When you use addition (+) operation on numbers, it performs a mathematical addition operation and gives you the sum of those two numbers.

But when you perform the addition (+) operation on strings, it performs a concatenation operation.

Let’s see…

print("CSEstack " + "programming tutorials")

Output:

CSEstack programming tutorials

Now we see one of the very interesting and useful stuff…

What if you want to print “Python” 10 times?

It will be very cumbersome to write Python 10 times manually.

print("Python "  * 10)

Output:

Python Python Python Python Python Python Python Python Python Python

When you multiply a string by the number ‘n’, it repeats the string ‘n’ times.

This is the first article as part of our complete Python tutorial. This is all about Python “Hello, World!” program. If you have any doubts, write in the comment section below.

Aniruddha Chaudhari

I am a Python enthusiast who loves Linux and Vim. I hold a Master of Computer Science degree from NIT Trichy and have 10 years of experience in the IT industry, focusing on the Software Development Lifecycle from Requirements Gathering, Design, Development to Deployment. I have worked at IBM, Ericsson, and NetApp, and I share my knowledge on CSEstack.org.