# 3 Invoking `hello`

The format for running the `hello` program is:

    hello option …

With no options, `hello` prints the greeting ‘`Hello, world!`’.

`hello` supports the following options:

‘`--greeting=text`’
‘`-g text`’

  Output text instead of the default greeting.

‘`--help`’
‘`-h`’

  Print an informative help message on standard output and exit successfully.

  For the ‘`--help`’ output of GNU programs, it’s strongly encouraged to include a brief (one or two sentences) description of what the program does, as well as the synopsis of how to run the program. Any environment variables which affect execution should also be mentioned (Hello doesn’t have any).

‘`--next-generation`’
‘`-n`’

  Output ‘`Hello, world!`’, but possibly including box-drawing characters or other fancy stuff, especially in translated locales. (If you would like to volunteer to translate messages for GNU packages, please see http://translationproject.org.)

‘`--traditional`’
‘`-t`’

  Output the traditional greeting message ‘`hello, world`’.

‘`--version`’
‘`-v`’

  Print the version number and licensing information of Hello on standard output and then exit successfully.

If more than one of the greeting options (‘`-g`’, ‘`-n`’, ‘`-t`’, and their long-named equivalents) is specified, whichever comes last takes precedence.