freeCodeCamp/guide/english/haskell/index.md

2.3 KiB

title
Haskell

What is Haskell?

Haskell is a standardized, general-purpose, purely functional programming language with declarative and strong static typing.

Haskell has deep roots in mathematics, and you will soon learn to appreciate the implications of it.

Version

Currently the latest version of GHC is 8.6 (as of 12 Oct 2018)

Installation

The recommended way to install Haskell is by using stack : stack download Stack is a cross-platform program for developing Haskell projects. It is aimed at Haskellers both new and experienced.

To actually start using Haskell you need the GHC (The Glasgow Haskell Compiler), so to setup : stack setup

stack new my-project
cd my-project
stack setup
stack build
stack exec my-project-exe

A word of cautious, try not to use stack install even though it will install package globally, this is not recommended as different versions of packages are compatible with different versions of GHC. Hence using local copy of package using stack build is best way to follow.

Structure of a Haskell Function

A Haskell function declaration has a name and type identifiers

name :: type
name = expression

For example, this function squares an Integer

square :: Integer -> Integer
square n = n * n 

The last type value is the return value, in the case above it takes a single integer and returns a single integer.

Hello World

main :: IO ()
main = print "Hello Haskell :)"

Save the code above in a file named "hello.hs".

You can use ghc to convert our haskell code to machine understandable bytecodes.

stack ghc hello.hs
./hello

Alternatively, you can use runhaskell to skip the compiling step.

stack runhaskell hello.hs

Documentation

Hackage provides documentation for Haskell

More Information