Getting Started

Hack is built specifically for HHVM, a high performance runtime for your Hack applications, and reconciles the fast development cycle of a dynamically typed language with the discipline provided by static typing, while adding many features commonly found in other modern programming languages.

Overview

The prerequisites you need to write and execute Hack code are pretty straightforward:

• The HHVM runtime
• The Hack typechecker (included with HHVM packages/builds)
• Optionally, a Hack-aware editor. We recommend Visual Studio Code with vscode-hack, and Vim with ALE also offers an excellent experience.

Your First Hack Program

Let's dive right in and create your first Hack program using the following, simple steps.

1. Install HHVM and the Typechecker

Check out the HHVM getting started guide on how to install HHVM.

After you install HHVM, the Hack typechecker will be available to you, so you can statically check your code before you run it. It is not a compiler; but rather, a super-fast code analyzer that tries to catch dynamic programming errors before code is run instead of during or after.

The typechecker is called hh_client and is available by default alongside HHVM in all official packages supported by the HHVM team. If you are using a community-contributed package, hh_client is very likely available there too, but you should check with your package maintainer.

2. Setup for the Typechecker

Choose a directory where you want to store your Hack code. In this directory, run touch .hhconfig. This creates an empty file that hh_client looks for as the root of your code to be typechecked. In order to properly analyze your code, the typechecker needs to do global analysis and be able to see all of your code. This means that it assumes a global autoloader for any code under this root, and checks all code recursively under this root together as one project.

3. Write your first Hack program

Using the editor of your choice (e.g., VSCode or vim), let's create a file called first.hack with the following code:

namespace Hack\GettingStarted\MyFirstProgram;

<<__EntryPoint>>
function main(): void {
  echo "Welcome to Hack!\n\n";

  \printf("Table of Squares\n" .
          "----------------\n");
  for ($i = -5; $i <= 5; ++$i) {
    \printf("  %2d        %2d  \n", $i, $i * $i);
  }
  \printf("----------------\n");
  exit(0);
}

This guide assumes some knowledge of programming. Hack has a very similar look and feel to PHP, which in turn, supports a lot of syntax shared by C, C++, C#, Java, and JavaScript. Here are the key points to note about this example:

• This code belongs to the unique, but arbitrary, namespace called Hack\GettingStarted\MyFirstProgram.
• The <<__EntryPoint>> annotation marks this function as the point where execution starts - there is nothing special about the function name main.
• main is a function that has no parameters and, being void, returns no value. Furthermore, this function is where the program will begin execution; that is, because of the <<__EntryPoint>> annotation, main is the entry-point function.
• echo writes some text and a blank line to standard output.
• printf also writes to standard output, but it provides format control, in this case, to right-justify the integer columns.
• The for loop has variable $i go from -5 to +5, in steps of 1, and for each iteration, the value of $i and that value squared are written out together on a separate line.

4. Run the Typechecker

If you are using Visual Studio Code with vscode-hack or Vim with ALE, you will be seeing typechecking information as you write the program. If you run the typechecker from the command line, the command is just:

$ hh_client first.hack

You should see:

No errors!

5. Run the code in HHVM

After you get your Hack program to typecheck clean with no errors, you can then run the program in HHVM, as follows:

$ hhvm first.hack

Here is the output:

Welcome to Hack!

Table of Squares
----------------
  -5        25
  -4        16
  -3         9
  -2         4
  -1         1
   0         0
   1         1
   2         4
   3         9
   4        16
   5        25
----------------

Now, go forth and Hack away!