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<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
    <head>
        <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/main.css" />
        <title>Xen Programming Language | Get Started</title>
    </head>

    <body>
        <nav>
            <div class="nav-content">
                <div class="nav-left">
                    <a href="index.html">Xen</a>
                </div>
                <div class="nav-right">
                    <a href="download.html">Download</a>
                    <a href="get-started.html">Get Started</a>
                    <a href="/bible/book/index.html">Documentation</a>
                    <a href="https://github.com/jakerieger/Xen">Source</a>
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        <div class="content">
            <article id="get-started">
                <h1>Get Started</h1>
                <hr />
                <p>This page serves as a guide for quickly getting up and running with Xen.</p>
                <ol>
                    <li><a href="#installing-xen">Installing Xen</a></li>
                    <li><a href="#hello-world">Hello World</a></li>
                    <li><a href="#variables">Variables</a></li>
                    <li><a href="#functions">Functions</a></li>
                    <li><a href="#loops">Loops</a></li>
                    <li><a href="#conditionals">Conditionals</a></li>
                    <li><a href="#modules-namespaces">Modules / Namespaces</a></li>
                </ol>
            </article>
            <br />
            <article id="installing-xen">
                <h2>1. Installing Xen</h2>
                <p>
                    Head over to the <a href="download.html">downloads</a> page and download the
                    appropriate distribution for your system. If your platform doesn't have any
                    precompiled binaries, you'll need to build Xen from source.
                </p>
                <blockquote>
                    Once you have Xen installed, make sure you add it's bin directory to your
                    <b style="color: #ababab">PATH</b> environment variable.
                </blockquote>
                <h3>Building from source</h3>
                <p>
                    In order to build Xen from source, you'll need to make sure your system meets
                    the following requirements:
                </p>
                <ul>
                    <li>ANSI C Compiler (GCC, Clang, MingW)</li>
                    <li>Makefile support (Xen doesn't use a build system like CMake or Meson)</li>
                </ul>
                <p>
                    Once you've verified your system requirements, download the source code and
                    extract the tarball. Then navigate into the project root and run the following
                    command:
                </p>
                <pre>$ make debug <span class="comment"># or release</span></pre>
                <p>For Windows compilation:</p>
                <pre>$ make windows-debug <span class="comment"># or windows-release</span></pre>
                <p>Clean build artifacts:</p>
                <pre>$ make clean</pre>
            </article>
            <br />
            <article id="hello-world">
                <h2>2. Hello World</h2>
                <p>
                    <i>Hello World</i> in Xen is extremely simple. Create a new text file with the
                    extension
                    <code>.xen</code>
                    and add the following line to it:
                </p>
                <pre>
<span class="keyword">include</span> io;
io.<span class="member">println</span>(<span class="literal">"Hello World"</span>);</pre>
                <br />
                <p>You can then run this program by running the following command:</p>
                <pre>$ xen hello-world.xen</pre>
            </article>
            <br />
            <article id="variables">
                <h2>3. Variables</h2>
                <p>
                    Variables in Xen are defined with the
                    <code>var</code> keyword. Variable names can contain letters, numbers and the
                    underscore (<code>_</code>) and can have a maximum length of 64 characters. They
                    cannot begin with a number. Any valid Xen object can be assigned to a variable,
                    including functions.
                </p>

                <pre>
<span class="keyword">var</span> x         = <span class="literal">10</span>;       <span class="comment"># valid</span>
<span class="keyword">var</span> _         = <span class="literal">"hello"</span>;  <span class="comment"># valid</span>
<span class="keyword">var</span> my_var_80 = <span class="literal">0.1</span>;      <span class="comment"># valid</span>
<span class="keyword">var</span> 5_times   = <span class="literal">null</span>;     <span class="comment"># invalid</span>
</pre>
            </article>
            <br />
            <article id="functions">
                <h2>4. Functions</h2>
                <p>
                    Functions in Xen are defined with the
                    <code>fn</code> keyword. Function names follow all the same rules as variable
                    names.
                </p>

                <pre>
<span class="keyword">fn</span> <span class="member">inv_mod</span>(<span class="literal">a</span>, <span class="literal">b</span>) {
    <span class="keyword">return</span> -a % -b;
}
</pre>
            </article>
        </div>

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            <p>Copyright &copy; 2025 Jake Rieger. All Rights Reserved.</p>
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