# The Solidity Contract-Oriented Programming Language
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Solidity is a statically typed, contract-oriented, high-level language for implementing smart contracts on the Ethereum platform.

## Table of Contents

- [Background](#background)
- [Build and Install](#build-and-install)
- [Example](#example)
- [Documentation](#documentation)
- [Development](#development)
- [Maintainers](#maintainers)
- [License](#license)
- [Security](#security)

## Background

Solidity is a statically-typed curly-braces programming language designed for developing smart contracts
that run on the Ethereum Virtual Machine. Smart contracts are programs that are executed inside a peer-to-peer
network where nobody has special authority over the execution, and thus they allow to implement tokens of value,
ownership, voting and other kinds of logics.

When deploying contracts, you should use the latest released version of
Solidity. This is because breaking changes as well as new features and bug fixes are
introduced regularly. We currently use a 0.x version
number [to indicate this fast pace of change](https://semver.org/#spec-item-4).

## Build and Install

Instructions about how to build and install the Solidity compiler can be
found in the [Solidity documentation](https://solidity.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installing-solidity.html#building-from-source).


## Example

A "Hello World" program in Solidity is of even less use than in other languages, but still:

```solidity
pragma solidity >=0.6.0 <0.8.0;

contract HelloWorld {
  function helloWorld() external pure returns (string memory) {
    return "Hello, World!";
  }
}
```

To get started with Solidity, you can use [Remix](https://remix.ethereum.org/), which is an
browser-based IDE. Here are some example contracts:

1. [Voting](https://solidity.readthedocs.io/en/latest/solidity-by-example.html#voting)
2. [Blind Auction](https://solidity.readthedocs.io/en/latest/solidity-by-example.html#blind-auction)
3. [Safe remote purchase](https://solidity.readthedocs.io/en/latest/solidity-by-example.html#safe-remote-purchase)
4. [Micropayment Channel](https://solidity.readthedocs.io/en/latest/solidity-by-example.html#micropayment-channel)

## Documentation

The Solidity documentation is hosted at [Read the docs](https://solidity.readthedocs.io).

## Development

Solidity is still under development. Contributions are always welcome!
Please follow the
[Developers Guide](https://solidity.readthedocs.io/en/latest/contributing.html)
if you want to help.

You can find our current feature and bug priorities for forthcoming
releases [in the projects section](https://github.com/ethereum/solidity/projects).

## Maintainers
* [@axic](https://github.com/axic)
* [@chriseth](https://github.com/chriseth)

## License
Solidity is licensed under [GNU General Public License v3.0](LICENSE.txt).

Some third-party code has its [own licensing terms](cmake/templates/license.h.in).

## Security

The security policy may be [found here](SECURITY.md).
