Creating a new console application (Visual Studio)

 

Creating a new console application (Visual Studio)

1. Open Visual Studio

2. In the toolbar, go to File → New Project

3. Select the Console Application project type

4. Open the file Program.cs in the Solution Explorer

5. Add the following code to Main():

public class Program

{

public static void Main()

{

// Prints a message to the console.

System.Console.WriteLine("Hello, World!");

/* Wait for the user to press a key. This is a common

way to prevent the console window from terminating

and disappearing before the programmer can see the contents

of the window, when the application is run via Start from within VS. */

System.Console.ReadKey();

}

}

6. In the toolbar, click Debug -> Start Debugging or hit F5 or ctrl + F5 (running without debugger) to run the

program.

Live Demo on ideone

Explanation

class Program is a class declaration. The class Program contains the data and method definitions that your

program uses. Classes generally contain multiple methods. Methods define the behavior of the class.

However, the Program class has only one method: Main.

static void Main() defines the Main method, which is the entry point for all C# programs. The Main method

states what the class does when executed. Only one Main method is allowed per class.

System.Console.WriteLine("Hello, world!"); method prints a given data (in this example, Hello,

world!) as an output in the console window.

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System.Console.ReadKey(), ensures that the program won't close immediately after displaying the message.

It does this by waiting for the user to press a key on the keyboard. Any key press from the user will terminate

the program. The program terminates when it has finished the last line of code in the main() method.

Using the command line

To compile via command line use either MSBuild or csc.exe (the C# compiler), both part of the Microsoft Build Tools

package.

To compile this example, run the following command in the same directory where HelloWorld.cs is located:

%WINDIR%\\Microsoft.NET\\Framework64\\v4.0.30319\\csc.exe HelloWorld.cs

It can also be possible that you have two main methods inside one application. In this case, you have to tell the

compiler which main method to execute by typing the following command in the console.(suppose Class ClassA

also has a main method in the same HelloWorld.cs file in HelloWorld namespace)

%WINDIR%\\Microsoft.NET\\Framework64\\v4.0.30319\\csc.exe HelloWorld.cs /main:HelloWorld.ClassA

where HelloWorld is namespace

Note: This is the path where .NET framework v4.0 is located in general. Change the path according to your .NET version.

In addition, the directory might be framework instead of framework64 if you're using the 32-bit .NET Framework. From

the Windows Command Prompt, you can list all the csc.exe Framework paths by running the following commands (the first

for 32-bit Frameworks):

dir %WINDIR%\\Microsoft.NET\\Framework\\csc.exe /s/b

dir %WINDIR%\\Microsoft.NET\\Framework64\\csc.exe /s/b

There should now be an executable file named HelloWorld.exe in the same directory. To execute the program

from the command prompt, simply type the executable's name and hit Enter as follows:

HelloWorld.exe

This will produce:

Hello, world!

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You may also double click the executable and launch a new console window with the message "Hello, world!"