The whole purpose of the "Hello, world!" program is to provide a simple example by which someone who is learning a new programming language can figure out how to use the tools needed to compile and run programs in that language. True, the helloWorld program in 1.1 The Anatomy of an HLA Program helps demonstrate the format and syntax of a simple HLA program, but the real purpose behind a program like helloWorld is to learn how to create and run a program from beginning to end. Although the previous section presents the layout of an HLA program, it did not discuss how to edit, compile, and run that program. This section will briefly cover those details.
All of the software you need to compile and run HLA programs can be found at http://www.artofasm.com/ or at http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/. Select High Level Assembly from the Quick Navigation Panel and then the Download HLA link from that page. HLA is currently available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and FreeBSD. Download the appropriate version of the HLA software for your system. From the Download HLA web page, you will also be able to download all the software associated with this book. If the HLA download doesn't include them, you will probably want to download the HLA reference manual and the HLA Standard Library reference manual along with HLA and the software for this book. This text does not describe the entire HLA language, nor does it describe the entire HLA Standard Library. You'll want to have these reference manuals handy as you learn assembly language using HLA.
This section will not describe how to install and set up the HLA system because those instructions change over time. The HLA download page for each of the operating systems describes how to install and use HLA. Please consult those instructions for the exact installation procedure.
Creating, compiling, and running an HLA program is very similar to the process you'd use when creating, compiling, or running a program in any computer language. First, because HLA is not an integrated development environment (IDE) that allows you to edit, compile, test and debug, and run your application all from within the same program, you'll create and edit HLA programs using a text editor.[1]
Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and FreeBSD offer many text editor options. You can even use the text editor provided with other IDEs to create and edit HLA programs (such as those found in Visual C++, Borland's Delphi, Apple's Xcode, and similar languages). The only restriction is that HLA expects ASCII text files, so the editor you use must be capable of manipulating and saving text files. Under Windows you can always use Notepad to create HLA programs. If you're working under Linux and FreeBSD you can use joe, vi, or emacs. Under Mac OS X you can use XCode or Text Wrangler or another editor of your preference.
The HLA compiler[2] is a traditional command-line compiler, which means that you need to run it from a Windows command-line prompt or a Linux/FreeBSD/Mac OS X shell. To do so, enter something like the following into the command-line prompt or shell window:
hla hw.hla
This command tells HLA to compile the hw.hla (helloWorld) program to an executable file. Assuming there are no errors, you can run the resulting program by typing the following command into your command prompt window (Windows):
hw
or into the shell interpreter window (Linux/FreeBSD/Mac OS X):
./hw
If you're having problems getting the program to compile and run properly, please see the HLA installation instructions on the HLA download page. These instructions describe in great detail how to install, set up, and use HLA.
[1] HIDE (HLA Integrated Development Environment) is an IDE available for Windows users. See the High Level Assembly web page for details on downloading HIDE.
[2] Traditionally, programmers have always called translators for assembly languages assemblers rather than compilers. However, because of HLA's high-level features, it is more proper to call HLA a compiler rather than an assembler.