Java Getting Started and Syntax

Navdeep kaur Java

if you are interested to learn java Introduction

Java Install

Some PCs might have Java already installed. To check if you have Java installed on a Windows PC, search in the start bar for Java or type the following in Command Prompt (cmd.exe):

C:\Users\Your Name>java -version

If Java is installed, you will see something like this (depending on version):

java version "11.0.1" 2018-10-16 LTS
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment 18.9 (build 11.0.1+13-LTS)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM 18.9 (build 11.0.1+13-LTS, mixed mode)

If you do not have Java installed on your computer, you can download it for free at oracle.com.

Note: In this tutorial, we will write Java code in a text editor. However, it is possible to write Java in an Integrated Development Environment, such as IntelliJ IDEA, Netbeans or Eclipse, which are particularly useful when managing larger collections of Java files.

Setup for Windows

To install Java on Windows:

  1. Go to “System Properties” (Can be found on Control Panel > System and Security > System > Advanced System Settings)
  2. Click on the “Environment variables” button under the “Advanced” tab
  3. Then, select the “Path” variable in System variables and click on the “Edit” button
  4. Click on the “New” button and add the path where Java is installed, followed by \bin. By default, Java is installed in C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-11.0.1 (If nothing else was specified when you installed it). In that case, You will have to add a new path with: C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-11.0.1\bin
    Then, click “OK”, and save the settings
  5. At last, open Command Prompt (cmd.exe) and type java -version to see if Java is running on your machine

Show how to install Java step-by-step with images »Step 2 »Step 3 »Step 4 »Step 5 »

Java Quickstart

In Java, every application begins with a class name, and that class must match the filename. Let’s create our first Java file, called Main.java, which can be done in any text editor (like Notepad).

The file should contain a “Hello World” message, which is written with the following code:

Main.java

public class Main {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    System.out.println("Hello World");
  }
}

Don’t worry if you don’t understand the code above – we will discuss it in detail in later chapters. For now, focus on how to run the code above.

Save the code in Notepad as “Main.java”. Open Command Prompt (cmd.exe), navigate to the directory where you saved your file, and type “javac Main.java”:

C:\Users\Your Name>javac Main.java

This will compile your code. If there are no errors in the code, the command prompt will take you to the next line. Now, type “java Main” to run the file:

C:\Users\Your Name>java Main

The output should read:

Hello World

Java Syntax

In the previous chapter, we created a Java file called Main.java, and we used the following code to print “Hello World” to the screen:

Main.java

public class Main {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    System.out.println("Hello World");
  }
}

Example explained

Every line of code that runs in Java must be inside a class. In our example, we named the class Main. A class should always start with an uppercase first letter.

Note: Java is case-sensitive: “MyClass” and “myclass” has different meaning.

The name of the java file must match the class name. When saving the file, save it using the class name and add “.java” to the end of the filename. To run the example above on your computer, make sure that Java is properly installed: Go to the Get Started Chapter for how to install Java. The output should be:

Hello World

The main Method

The main() method is required and you will see it in every Java program:

public static void main(String[] args)

Any code inside the main() method will be executed. Don’t worry about the keywords before and after main. You will get to know them bit by bit while reading this tutorial.

For now, just remember that every Java program has a class name which must match the filename, and that every program must contain the main() method.

System.out.println()

Inside the main() method, we can use the println() method to print a line of text to the screen:

public static void main(String[] args) {
  System.out.println("Hello World");
}

Note: The curly braces {} marks the beginning and the end of a block of code.

System is a built-in Java class that contains useful members, such as out, which is short for “output”. The println() method, short for “print line”, is used to print a value to the screen (or a file). Don’t worry too much about System, out and println(). Just know that you need them together to print stuff to the screen. You should also note that each code statement must end with a semicolon (;).

Java Getting Started and Syntax
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