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haXe 2 Beginner's Guide

Chapter 1. Getting to know haXe

Entering the haXe World.

In this chapter you will discover haXe's world and enter it. You'll install haXe and write your first program.

This is our first chapter and you will soon be taking your first steps with haXe. However, before you get into action, let's introduce you to haXe and set up your working environment.

In this chapter, you will:

Install haXe
Choose a code editor based on our requirements
Write and run your first program
Write a program interacting with the user

Seems like a long list? Don't be afraid, you will make it!

Installing haXe

Enough talking, let's install haXe! You will see how easy it is.

Two ways to install: The installer and sources compilation

You should know that there are two ways to install haXe, which are as follows:

Using the installer: An executable that will automatically install haXe for you.
Compiling from sources using the code repository located at the following URL:
http://code.google.com/p/haxe

One important thing to note is that haXe can be installed on on Windows, Linux, and MacOSX. This way, you don't have to worry about your operating system and can continue working in your environment.

Installing on Windows

Installing haXe on Windows is pretty easy, but there are some caveats that we should avoid.

So, carry out the following steps:

Go to http://www.haxe.org.
Click on the Download link.
There, you will find a link to download the Windows version of the installer. It comes as an executable file.
Run the executable.

Note that if you're working on Windows Vista or Windows 7, you will need to run the executable as Administrator. You can do so by right-clicking on the installer while holding the Shift key down and then clicking on Run as Administrator.

Installing on MacOSX

Installing haXe on MacOSX is very straightforward. Carry out the following steps:

Go to http://www.haxe.org.
Click on the Download link.
There, locate and click on the link to download the OSX Universal Installer.
The installer comes as a DMG image, if it's not automatically mounted; mount it by double-clicking on it.
Go to where the DMG image is mounted and run the installer.

That's it! You have haXe installed on MacOSX!

Installing on Linux

Some distributions have haXe in their repositories, so you may install it from your distribution's repository if it's available.

Alternatively, you can use the Linux Installer to install haXe; it does work on many distributions. Carry out the following steps to install haXe on Linux:

Go to http://www.haxe.org.
Click on the Downloads link.
Find the link to download the Linux version of the installer.
Uncompress the file by using the tar –zxf hxinst-linux.tgz command.
Add execution rights on the installer by using the chmod +x hxinst-linux command.
Run the installer with administration rights either by using the sudo –s command or the su – command, and then running ./hxinst-linux.

Now, you should have haXe installed on your Linux machine.

Installing nightly builds

If you need features that are not in the latest release, you can use the nightly builds to easily have access to binaries of what is in the repository without the need of compiling it on your own.

You will be able to find them on the haXe website's Download page for your operating system.

Note that the nightly builds do not come with an installer and therefore, you are advised to first install using the installer, so that it sets up all environment variables and then replaces installed files by the ones from the nightly builds archive.

On MacOSX and Linux machines, you should find them in /usr/lib/haxe, while on Windows, they should be in c:\haxe.

Verifying your installation

You can verify that haXe is correctly installed by opening a terminal and running the haxe command; if haXe is correctly installed, then you should get the help message.

You can also test that Neko is correctly installed by running the neko command. You should again get the help message.

Time for action – Interacting with the user

Now, we're going to create an application that takes your name as a parameter, greets you, and displays the number of characters in your name.

Copy the following code in a file named Main.hx

class Main
{
  public function new()
  {
  
  }

  public static function main()
  {
   var name = neko.Sys.args()[0];
   trace("Hello " + name);
   trace("Your name is " + Std.string(name.length) + " characters long.");
  }
}

Open a terminal; go to the directory where you saved Main.hx and type the haxe –main Main -neko characterCounter.n command.
Type the command (this is an example with my first name):
neko characterCounter.n Benjamin
You will see the following output:
Main.hx:12: Hello Benjamin
Main.hx:13: Your name is 8 characters long.

What just happened?

The program read your name from the command line, greeted you by appending your name to "Hello", and displayed the number of characters that make up your name.

The code: You already know the basics about the class and the main function. What is interesting to see here is how we get the arguments. When targeting neko, we can use the args function of neko.Sys. This function takes no parameters and returns an Array of String.
As you can see, we can access an array's item by its index using the square-brackets notation. Here we are accessing the item at index 0 (arrays are 0-based, that means that the first item is always at index 0).
Then, we use the trace function that you've already seen to display "Hello" followed by the name of the user. As you can see here, string concatenation is done by using the + operator. It is still quite important to note that there are classes such as StringBuf that can be used to achieve the same behavior, if you are focused on performances.
You'll also notice that String has a variable named length that allows you to retrieve the number of characters in it.
By the way, haXe is typed, and here we are using Std.string to convert the length of the string from Int to String. Std.string can be used to convert any value to a String. This is not mandatory here, as when using the + operator, if one of the two values is not an Int nor a Float, the operator will return a String. In this case, all operands will be considered as String.
The compilation: Well, as you can see, there's absolutely nothing new in the compilation process. The only thing we've changed is the output file's name.
Running the neko code: In the third step, we invoke the neko VM and tell it to execute the characterCounter.n file by passing it an argument: Benjamin.
Possible improvements: Our program is quite simple, but if you've some experience with programming, you may have noticed one point where our program may encounter an exception: we are relying on the fact that the user will give us at least one argument, and we access it directly without verifying that it's really there. So, if the user gives us no argument, we will encounter an exception. There are two ways to handle that: either we verify how many arguments the user has given, or we can also try to catch exceptions. This is something that we will explain later.

Pop quiz – basic knowledge

It is possible to install haXe on:
1. Windows
2. MacOSX
3. Linux
4. Android
5. iOS
What major version do we use nowadays?
1. haXe 1
2. haXe 2
3. haXe 3
4. haXe 4
The main function of a program has to be:
1. static and named main
2. public and named first
3. public and static, and named first
The debugging function that prints some text is named:
1. println
2. print
3. trace
4. debug

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Lars Mathiasen Feb 06, 2024

Feefo Verified review

razaina Sep 11, 2011

It's about 2 years I'm using haXe. I'm not a beginner but I still have constantly a lot of stuff to learn.haXe is a powerful language which provides many features, and gives to developers a tool to create websites, and applications. Thanks to its cross-platform features, it brings ease to target different platforms using a single unified programming language.In this book, Benjamin Dasnois made a great job of introducing the specifics of the language.The book is really easy to read, and at first sight, it is aimed for beginners, but not only because I was surprised to learn stuff I never tried to do before, and to reinforce my knowledges in some area like how different applications can communicate between each other (Chapter 7 : Communication between haXe programs).The chapters of the book are cleverly well structured.The "Time for action" heading followed by the "What just happened ?" make this book so enjoyable to read.Like a recipe, you just have to follow instructions and then you can ta(e)ste it. The second heading gives clear explanations about how tasks or instructions work.The only negative for this book to me is that C++ which is a haXe target that I didn't experimented yet, isn't covered, so I expected to read some stuff about it.If you're looking for a comprehensive introduction to what haXe is all about, or if you're a beginner or an intermediate haXe developer who want to fill gaps in your knowledge, I really would recommend buying this book.Anyway, subscribe to the haXe mailing list and stay tuned for all the new features the language is offering.

Amazon Verified review

Amazon Customer Oct 26, 2011

Writing a book about haxe seems to me extremely difficult because of the language multi platform nature, constant improvement process and a variety of projects related to the haxe. And I'm glad that Benjamin Dasnois started this great work of collection knowledge about haxe in a book format. This is the first edition and certainly there are a number of things I would suggest to improve.My main complaint is to extreme brevity. Of course a small size is good for a book, but text often doesn't explain why things are so as they are, only enlists strict facts about the language without discussion, gets you know about alternatives or providing a list of advantages and disadvantages. OOP concepts definitions from my point of view are currently poor and I'm sure that it should be said in preface that a reader must be familiar with at least one OOP language to follow the author's ideas easily.The other thing I was very disappointed about is a low quality of the code snippets. Examples contain dead code, number of compile errors, absence of single code style and bad indentation. Also almost everywhere in the book single line comments spread across several lines and that produces errors after copying code into a text editor. As a result there's a strong feeling of incompleteness and mediocrity. Hope it will be corrected as soon as possible.In my opinion there are still enough unexposed places in the book without further references (e.g. how I can make types comparable, what is the range of integer, performance discussion and targets nuances). Some links to the documentation or even well-known discussions in mailing lists would be very useful if it is not possible to include that information into the book.There are several things I would recommend to add to this book. A full description of haxe compiler options because it's not clear how to work with the given examples. More steps how to setup environment for running examples for those who is unfamiliar with described target platform. Also I think that there should be more explanation and some comparisons with other languages to know why one should prefer haxe instead of using them. A fair description of current haXe problems and their possible solutions could enclose a useful chapter. And surely I should mention that book doesn't consider C++ target and has no information about macroses.On the other hand I was glad to get know about templates and SPOD library in haXe and will definitely try to play with them closer. There is a good chapter how to feel comfortable in the community that is very important for haxe beginners.On the whole "haXe 2 Beginner's Guide" in current version is an overview of some haXe possibilities. It could be useful for those who is familiar with OOP concepts and wants to see main features of haxe without a lot of details but with some examples.[...]

haXe 2 Beginner's Guide: Develop exciting applications with this multi-platform programming language

What do you get with eBook?

haXe 2 Beginner's Guide

Chapter 1. Getting to know haXe

Installing haXe

Two ways to install: The installer and sources compilation

Installing on Windows

Installing on MacOSX

Installing on Linux

Installing nightly builds

Verifying your installation

Choosing an editor

FlashDevelop 3

The TextMate bundle

VIM

Writing your first program

Time for action – Writing a Hello World

Tip

What just happened?

A program with some interaction

Time for action – Interacting with the user

What just happened?

Pop quiz – basic knowledge

Summary

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