Printing and Variables

Pascal programs are built from a program header, a var section for declarations, and a begin...end. block -- every statement ends with a semicolon.

Your first program

program HelloWorld;
begin
  writeln('Hello, world!');
end.

Variables

Every variable's type must be declared up front, in a var section, before it's used:

var
  name: string;
  age: integer;
  gpa: real;

Assigning values

begin
  name := 'Ada';
  age := 20;
  gpa := 4.5;
end.

:= is the assignment operator -- = on its own is only for comparisons.

Getting input

var
  name: string;
begin
  write('What is your name? ');
  readln(name);
  writeln('Hello, ', name);
end.

Comments

{ This is a comment -- Pascal ignores everything between the braces }
// This is also a comment, to the end of the line

Why This Matters for Your Exams

Pascal is strongly, statically typed -- unlike Python, every variable's type is fixed the moment it's declared and checked before the program even runs. Forgetting a semicolon or mismatching a type is the single most common beginner compile error.

Try it yourself

Change the name below and press Run to see Pascal's own output.