newbie gcc question

[Maggie Owens <mmowens at my-deja dot com>]

I have a little experience writing C++ in the dos and windows
environment. Now I am trying to write a c program and compile it in gcc
on a unix system. As a test, I wrote the traditional hello, world
program:
  #include <stdio.h>
  void main()
  {
    printf("Hello, world!");
  }

I compiled it using:
  gcc helloworld.c
Now, I have a.out, which appears to be executable.

I am using the z shell.
I tried typing:
   a.out
and got:
   zsh: command not found: a.out
so I tried
   sh a.out
and got
   a.out: (M-^A)^C^A^K: not found
   a.out: syntax error at line 10: `;;' unexpected
finally, I tried
   ./a.out
and got nothing in response

I feel abysmally stupid. How can I execute my program?
Thanks in advance


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