Hello World Tutorial

This tutorial provides step by step instruction on how to create and run a very simple 'Hello World' type of script. It will illustrate the basics of how to create and use a variable and how to display information to the screen.

Start by opening a standard ASCII text editor. Create a new file and save it as "HelloWorld.psc" in the same directory as where your Phantom Interpreter (phantom.exe) is installed.

The first line of the script will be a comment. Comments are indicated by a '#' character. Anything after the '#' character in a line of script code is ignored by the Phantom interpreter.

Example Code
Line	Code
1	# This is a simple Phantom script

Next, a single string variable will be created. This will be done using the type 'string' and giving the variable a name, 's'. Initially, the variable contains nothing but an empty string. Later the string will be given a value.

Example Code
Line	Code
1 2 3 4	# This is a simple Phantom script # Declare a string variable string s;

To give the string a value, use the name 's' followed by the equal sign (=), followed by the value. Note that the value for a string must be in quotes. Other variable types have values represented in different ways. See Variables for more information.

Example Code
Line	Code
1 2 3 4 5 6 7	# This is a simple Phantom script # Declare a string variable string s; # Give the variable a value s = "Hello World!";

Finally, display the value of the string 's' to the screen. This is done using the 'disp' function. For the DOS version of Phantom, the 'disp' function displays a value to the DOS console.

Example Code
Line	Code
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10	# This is a simple Phantom script # Declare a string variable string s; # Give the variable a value s = "Hello World!"; # Display the variable to the screen disp(s);

That's all there is to a simple 'Hello World' script. Save the script in the editor as "HelloWorld.psc" if not already done. The script should be saved in the same folder where the phantom.exe executable is located.

Now, run the script by opening a DOS console. If you are using Windows 98 or before, click Start, then 'Run'. Then type 'command' in the run box and hit enter. This will open the console window.

If you are running a windows version later than Windows 98, click Start, then 'Run', and then enter 'cmd' in the run box. In Windows Vista, type 'cmd' in the search box after clicking 'Start'.

Once the console is open, navigate to the folder where phantom.exe is located. Then enter the following:

phantom.exe HelloWorld.psc

This will run the HelloWorld script just created. The output should look like:

Output

An alternative to going through the console is to simply double-click on the phantom.exe icon. This will open phantom in console mode.

In console mode, the script can be run by entering the include keyword, followed by the name of the script:

Output

That's it! You have created and run your first HelloWorld script. Many of the examples in this documentation are stand-alone scripts that can be run just like this HelloWorld script was. Simply take the example code and place it in a file and save it. Then run it using Phantom.exe as described above. Note that any examples with code preceded by line numbers (1 >>, 2 >>, etc...) are console examples. Remove the line numbers (1 >>, 2 >>, etc...) to use the commands in a script.

The next tutorial illustrates how to do a simple automation Hello World.