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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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## 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
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.
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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 )
## Example
A "Hello World" program in Solidity is of even less use than in other languages, but still:
```
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pragma solidity ^0.4.16;
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contract HelloWorld {
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function helloWorld() external pure returns (string memory) {
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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:
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1. [Voting ](https://solidity.readthedocs.io/en/v0.4.24/solidity-by-example.html#voting )
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2. [Blind Auction ](https://solidity.readthedocs.io/en/v0.4.24/solidity-by-example.html#blind-auction )
3. [Safe remote purchase ](https://solidity.readthedocs.io/en/v0.4.24/solidity-by-example.html#safe-remote-purchase )
4. [Micropayment Channel ](https://solidity.readthedocs.io/en/v0.4.24/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.
## Maintainers
[@axic ](https://github.com/axic )
[@chriseth ](https://github.com/chriseth )
## License
Solidity is licensed under [GNU General Public License v3.0 ](https://github.com/ethereum/solidity/blob/develop/LICENSE.txt )
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