Installing the Solidity compiler
Solidity is one of the languages that is used to author smart contracts. Smart contracts will be dealt with in detail in the following chapters. The code written using Solidity is compiled using a Solidity compiler, which outputs byte code and other artifacts needed for the deployment of smart contracts. Earlier, Solidity was part of the Geth installation; however, it has moved out of Geth and should be deployed using its own installation.
The Solidity compiler, also known as solc, can be installed using npm:
npm install -g solc
The preceding command line generates the following output:
Figure 2.16 – Installing the Solidity compiler
The Solidity compiler helps in compiling smart contracts, while another important framework known as web3 is used for interacting with an existing Ethereum network. Next, we are going to look at installing and using the web3 framework.
