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# 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.
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## Table of Contents
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- [Background ](#background )
- [Build and Install ](#build-and-install )
- [Example ](#example )
- [Documentation ](#documentation )
- [Development ](#development )
- [Maintainers ](#maintainers )
- [License ](#license )
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- [Security ](#security )
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## Background
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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
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network where nobody has special authority over the execution, and thus they allow to implement tokens of value,
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ownership, voting, and other kinds of logic.
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When deploying contracts, you should use the latest released version of
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Solidity. This is because breaking changes, as well as new features and bug fixes are
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introduced regularly. We currently use a 0.x version
number [to indicate this fast pace of change ](https://semver.org/#spec-item-4 ).
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## Build and Install
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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 ).
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## Example
A "Hello World" program in Solidity is of even less use than in other languages, but still:
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```solidity
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pragma solidity >=0.6.0 < 0.8.0 ;
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contract HelloWorld {
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function helloWorld() external pure returns (string memory) {
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return "Hello, World!";
}
}
```
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To get started with Solidity, you can use [Remix ](https://remix.ethereum.org/ ), which is a
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browser-based IDE. Here are some example contracts:
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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 )
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## 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.
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You can find our current feature and bug priorities for forthcoming
releases [in the projects section ](https://github.com/ethereum/solidity/projects ).
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## Maintainers
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* [@axic ](https://github.com/axic )
* [@chriseth ](https://github.com/chriseth )
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## License
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Solidity is licensed under [GNU General Public License v3.0 ](LICENSE.txt ).
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Some third-party code has its [own licensing terms ](cmake/templates/license.h.in ).
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## Security
The security policy may be [found here ](SECURITY.md ).