1mcs(1) General Commands Manual mcs(1)
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6 mcs, gmcs, smcs - Mono C# Compiler (1.0, 2.0, Moonlight)
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9 mcs [option] [source-files]
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12 mcs is the Mono C# compiler, an implementation of the ECMA-334 language
13 specification. You can pass one or more options to drive the compiler,
14 and a set of source files. Extra options or arguments can be provided
15 in a response file. Response files are referenced by prepending the @
16 symbol to the response file name.
17 The mcs compiler is used to compile against the 1.x profile and imple‐
19 ments C# 1.0 and parts of C# 2.0 and C# 3.0 specification which do not
20 depend on generics.
21 The gmcs compiler is used to compile against the 2.0 profile and imple‐
23 ments the complete C# 3.0 specification.
24 The smcs compiler is used to compile against the Silverlight/Moonlight
26 profile. This profile is designed to be used for creating Sil‐
27 verlight/Moonlight applications that will run on a web browser. The
28 API exposed by this profile is a small subset of the 3.5 API (even if
29 it is commonly referred as the 2.1 API, this API is a small subset of
30 2.0 with a few extensions).
31 See the section on packages for more information.
33 The Mono C# compiler accepts the same command line options that the Mi‐
35 crosoft C# compiler does. Those options can start with a slash or a
36 dash (/checked is the same as -checked). Additionally some GNU-like
37 options are supported, those begin with "--". All MCS-specific flags
38 which are not available in the Microsoft C# compiler are available only
39 with the GNU-style options.
40 C# source files must end with a ".cs" extension. Compilation of C#
42 source code requires all the files that make up a library, module or
43 executable to be provided on the command line. There is no support for
44 partial compilation. To achieve the benefits of partial compilation,
45 you should compile programs into their own assemblies, and later refer‐
46 ence them with the "-r" flag.
47 The Mono C# compiler generates images (.exe files) that contain CIL
49 byte code that can be executed by any system that implements a Common
50 Language Infrastructure virtual machine such as the Microsoft .NET run‐
51 time engine on Windows or the Mono runtime engine on Unix systems.
52 Executables are not bound to a specific CPU or operating system.
53 The Mono C# compiler by default only references three assemblies:
55 mscorlib.dll, System.dll and System.Xml.dll. If you want to reference
56 extra libraries you must manually specify them using the -pkg: command
57 line option or the -r: command line option. Alternatively if you want
58 to get all of the System libraries, you can use the -pkg:dotnet command
59 line option.
60
62 --about
63 Displays information about the Mono C# compiler
64 --addmodule:MODULE1[,MODULE2]
66 Includes the specified modules in the resulting assembly. Mod‐
67 ules are created by calling the compiler with the -target:module
68 option
69 -checked, -checked+
71 Sets the default compilation mode to `checked'. This makes all
72 the math operations checked (the default is unchecked).
73 -checked-
75 Sets the default compilation mode to `unchecked'. This makes
76 all the math operations unchecked (this is the default).
77 -clscheck-, -clscheck+
79 Disables or enables the Common Language Specification (CLS)
80 checks (it is enabled by default).
81 The Common Language Specification (CLS) defines an interoperable
83 subset of types as well as conventions that compilers (CLS pro‐
84 ducers) and developers must follow to expose code to other pro‐
85 gramming languages (CLS consumers).
86 -codepage:ID
88 Specifies the code page used to process the input files from the
89 point it is specified on. By default files will be processed in
90 the environment-dependent native code page. The compiler will
91 also automatically detect Unicode files that have an embedded
92 byte mark at the beginning.
93 Other popular encodings are 28591 (Latin1), 1252 (iso-8859-1)
95 and 65001 (UTF-8).
96 MCS supports a couple of shorthands: "utf8" can be used to spec‐
98 ify utf-8 instead of using the cryptic 65001 and "reset"
99 restores the automatic handling of code pages. These shorthands
100 are not available on the Microsoft compiler.
101 -define:SYMLIST, -d:SYMLIST
103 Defines the symbol listed by the semi-colon separated list SYM‐
104 LIST SYMBOL. This can be tested in the source code by the pre-
105 processor, or can be used by methods that have been tagged with
106 the Conditional attribute.
107 -debug, -debug+
109 Generate debugging information. To obtain stack traces with
110 debugging information, you need to invoke the mono runtime with
111 the `--debug' flag. This debugging information is stored inside
112 the assembly as a resource.
113 -debug-
115 Do not generate debugging information.
116 -delaysign+
118 Only embed the strongname public key into the assembly. The
119 actual signing must be done in a later stage using the SN tool.
120 This is useful to protect the private key during development.
121 Note that delay signing can only be done using a strongname key
122 file (not a key container). The option is equivalent to includ‐
123 ing [assembly: AssemblyDelaySign (true)] in your source code.
124 Compiler option takes precedence over the attributes.
125 -delaysign-
127 Default. Strongname (sign) the assembly using the strong name
128 key file (or container). The option is equivalent to including
129 [assembly: AssemblyDelaySign (false)] in your source code. Com‐
130 piler option takes precedence over the attributes.
131 -doc:FILE
133 Extracts the C#/XML documentation from the source code and
134 stores in in the given FILE.
135 -errorreport
137 This flag is ignored by Mono's C# compiler and is present only
138 to allow MCS to be used as a CSC replacement for msbuild/xbuild.
139 --fatal
141 This is used for debugging the compiler. This makes the error
142 emission generate an exception that can be caught by a debugger.
143 -filealign
145 This flag is ignored by Mono's C# compiler and is present only
146 to allow MCS to be used as a CSC replacement for msbuild/xbuild.
147 -keyfile:KEYFILE
149 Strongname (sign) the output assembly using the key pair present
150 in the specified strong name key file (snk). A full key pair is
151 required by default (or when using delaysign-). A file contain‐
152 ing only the public key can be used with delaysign+. The option
153 is equivalent to including [assembly: AssemblyKeyFile ("KEY‐
154 FILE")] in your source code. Compiler option takes precedence
155 over the attributes.
156 -keycontainer:CONTAINER
158 Strongname (sign) the output assembly using the key pair present
159 in the specified container. Note that delaysign+ is ignored when
160 using key containers. The option is equivalent to including
161 [assembly: AssemblyKeyName ("CONTAINER")] in your source code.
162 Compiler option takes precedence over the attributes.
163 -langversion:TEXT
165 The option specifies the version of the language to use. The
166 feature set is different in each C# version. This switch can be
167 used to force the compiler to allow only a subset of the fea‐
168 tures. The possible values are:
169 Default
171 Instruct compiler to use the latest version. Equivalent
172 is to omit the switch (this currently defaults to the C#
173 3.0 language specification).
174 ISO-1 Restrict compiler to use only first ISO standardized fea‐
176 tures. The usage of features such as generics, static
177 classes, anonymous methods will lead to error.
178 ISO-2 Restrict compiler to use only the second ISO standardized
180 features. This allows the use of generics, static
181 classes, iterators and anonymous methods for example.
182 3 Restrict the compiler to use only the features available
184 in C# 3.0 (a superset of ISO-1 and ISO-2).
185 future Enables features from upcoming versions of the language.
187 As of May 2009 this includes support for C# 4 as released
188 in Visual Studio 2010 beta 1.
189 Notice that this flag only controls the language features avail‐
191 able to the programmer, it does not control the kind of assem‐
192 blies produced. Programs compiled with mcs will reference the
193 1.1 APIs, Programs compiled with gmcs reference the 2.0 APIs.
194 -lib:PATHLIST
196 Each path specified in the comma-separated list will direct the
197 compiler to look for libraries in that specified path.
198 -L PATH
200 Directs the compiler to look for libraries in the specified
201 path. Multiple paths can be provided by using the option multi‐
202 ple times.
203 -main:CLASS
205 Tells the compiler which CLASS contains the entry point. Useful
206 when you are compiling several classes with a Main method.
207 -nostdlib, -nostdlib+
209 Use this flag if you want to compile the core library. This
210 makes the compiler load its internal types from the assembly
211 being compiled.
212 -noconfig, -noconfig+
214 Disables the default compiler configuration to be loaded. The
215 compiler by default has references to the system assemblies.
216 -nowarn:WARNLIST
218 Makes the compiler ignore warnings specified in the comma-sepa‐
219 rated list WARNLIST>
220 -optimize, -optimize+, -optimize-
222 Controls whether to perform optimizations on the code. -opti‐
223 mize and -optimize+ will turn on optimizations, -optimize- will
224 turn it off. The default in mcs is to optimize+.
225 -out:FNAME, -o FNAME
227 Names the output file to be generated.
228 --parse
230 Used for benchmarking. The compiler will only parse its input
231 files.
232 -pkg:package1[,packageN]
234 Reference assemblies for the given packages.
235 The compiler will invoke pkg-config --libs on the set of pack‐
237 ages specified on the command line to obtain libraries and
238 directories to compile the code.
239 This is typically used with third party components, like this:
241 $ mcs -pkg:gtk-sharp demo.cs
243 -pkg:dotnet
245 This will instruct the compiler to reference the System.*
246 libraries available on a typical dotnet framework instal‐
247 lation, notice that this does not include all of the Mono
248 libraries, only the System.* ones. This is a convenient
249 shortcut for those porting code.
250 -pkg:olive
252 Use this to reference the "Olive" libraries (the 3.0 and
253 3.5 extended libraries).
254 -pkg:silver
256 References the assemblies for creating Moonlight/Sil‐
257 verlight applications. This is automatically used when
258 using the smcs compiler, but it is here when developers
259 want to use it with the gmcs compiler.
260 -pkg:silverdesktop
262 Use this option to create Moonlight/Silverlight applica‐
263 tions that target the desktop. This option allows
264 developers to consume the Silverlight APIs with the full
265 2.0 profile API available to them, unlike smcs it gives
266 full access to all the APIs that are part of Mono. The
267 only downside is that applications created with sil‐
268 verdesktop will not run on the browser. Typically these
269 applications will be launched with the mopen command line
270 tool.
271 For more details see the PACKAGE section in this document
273 -platform:ARCH
275 Used to specify the target platform. The possible values are:
276 anycpu, x86, x64 or itanium. As of June 2009, the Mono runtime
277 only have support to emit anycpu and x86 assemblies.
278 -resource:RESOURCE[,ID]
280 Embeds to the given resource file. The optional ID can be used
281 to give a different name to the resource. If not specified, the
282 resource name will be the file name.
283 -linkresource:RESOURCE[,ID]
285 Links to the specified RESOURCE. The optional ID can be used to
286 give a name to the linked resource.
287 -r:ASSEMBLY1[,ASSEMBLY2], -reference ASSEMBLY1[,ASSEMBLY2]
289 Reference the named assemblies. Use this to use classes from
290 the named assembly in your program. The assembly will be loaded
291 from either the system directory where all the assemblies live,
292 or from the path explicitly given with the -L option.
293 You can also use a semicolon to separate the assemblies instead
295 of a comma.
296 -reference:ALIAS=ASSEMBLY
298 Extern alias reference support for C#.
299 If you have different assemblies that provide the same types,
301 the extern alias support allows you to provide names that your
302 software can use to tell those appart. The types from ASSEM‐
303 BLY will be exposed as ALIAS, then on the C# source code, you
304 need to do:
305 extern alias ALIAS;
307 To bring it into your namespace. For example, to cope with two
308 graphics libraries that define "Graphics.Point", one in
309 "OpenGL.dll" and one in "Postscript.dll", you would invoke the
310 compiler like this:
311 mcs -r:Postscript=Postscript.dll -r:OpenGL=OpenGL.dll
313 And in your source code, you would write:
315 extern alias Postscript;
317 extern alias OpenGL;
318 class X {
320 // This is a Graphics.Point from Postscrip.dll
321 Postscript.Point p = new Postscript.Point ();
322 // This is a Graphics.Point from OpenGL.dll
324 OpenGL.Point p = new OpenGL.Point ();
325 }
326 -recurse:PATTERN, --recurse PATTERN
328 Does recursive compilation using the specified pattern. In Unix
329 the shell will perform globbing, so you might want to use it
330 like this:
331 $ mcs -recurse:'*.cs'
333 --shell
335 Starts up the compiler in interactive mode, providing a C# shell
336 for statements and expressions. A shortcut is to use the
337 csharp command directly.
338 --stacktrace
340 Generates a stack trace at the time the error is reported, use‐
341 ful for debugging the compiler.
342 -target:KIND, -t:KIND
344 Used to specify the desired target. The possible values are:
345 exe (plain executable), winexe (Windows.Forms executable),
346 library (component libraries) and module (partial library).
347 --timestamp
349 Another debugging flag. Used to display the times at various
350 points in the compilation process.
351 -unsafe, -unsafe+
353 Enables compilation of unsafe code.
354 -v Debugging. Turns on verbose yacc parsing.
356 --version
358 Shows the compiler version.
359 -warnaserror, -warnaserror+
361 All compilers warnings will be reported as errors.
362 -warnaserror:W1,[Wn], -warnaserror+:W1,[Wn]
364 Treats one or more compiler warnings as errors.
365 -warnaserror-:W1,[Wn]
367 Sets one or more compiler warnings to be always threated as
368 warnings. Becomes useful when used together with -warnaserror.
369 -warn:LEVEL
371 Sets the warning level. 0 is the lowest warning level, and 4 is
372 the highest. The default is 4.
373 -win32res:FILE
375 Specifies a Win32 resource file (.res) to be bundled into the
376 resulting assembly.
377 -win32icon:FILE
379 Attaches the icon specified in FILE on the output into the
380 resulting assembly.
381 -- Use this to stop option parsing, and allow option-looking param‐
383 eters to be passed on the command line.
384
386 When referencing an assembly, if the name of the assembly is a path,
387 the compiler will try to load the assembly specified in the path. If
388 it does not, then the compiler will try loading the assembly from the
389 current directory, the compiler base directory and if the assembly is
390 not found in any of those places in the directories specified as argu‐
391 ments to the -lib: command argument.
392 Depending on the invocation for the C# compiler (mcs, gmcs, or smcs)
394 you will get a default set of libraries and versions of those libraries
395 that are referenced.
396 The compiler uses the library path to locate libraries, and is able to
398 reference libraries from a particular package if that directory is
399 used. To simplify the use of packages, the C# compiler includes the
400 -pkg: command line option that is used to load specific collections of
401 libraries.
402 Libraries visible to the compiler are stored relative to the installa‐
404 tion prefix under PREFIX/lib/mono/ called the PACKAGEBASE and the
405 defaults for mcs, gmcs and smcs are as follows:
406 mcs References the PACKAGEBASE/1.0 directory
408 gmcs References the PACKAGEBASE/2.0 directory
410 smcs References the PACKAGEBASE/2.1 directory
412 Those are the only runtime profiles that exist. Although other direc‐
414 tories exist (like 3.0 and 3.5) those are not really runtime profiles,
415 they are merely placeholders for extra libraries that build on the 2.0
416 foundation.
417 Software providers will distribute software that is installed relative
419 to the PACKAGEBASE directory. This is integrated into the gacutil tool
420 that not only installs public assemblies into the Global Assembly Cache
421 (GAC) but also installs them into the PACKAGEBASE/PKG directory (where
422 PKG is the name passed to the -package flag to gacutil).
423 As a developer, if you want to consume the Gtk# libraries, you would
425 invoke the compiler like this:
426 $ mcs -pkg:gtk-sharp-2.0 main.cs
428 The -pkg: option instructs the compiler to fetch the definitions for
430 gtk-sharp-2.0 from pkg-config, this is equivalent to passing to the C#
431 compiler the output of:
432 $ pkg-config --libs gtk-sharp-2.0
434 Usually this merely references the libraries from PACKAGEBASE/PKG.
436 Although there are directory names for 3.0 and 3.5, that does not mean
438 that there are 3.0 and 3.5 compiler editions or profiles. Those are
439 merely new libraries that must be manually referenced either with the
440 proper -pkg: invocation, or by referencing the libraries directly.
441
443 The TRACE and DEBUG defines have a special meaning to the compiler.
444 By default calls to methods and properties in the System.Diagnos‐
446 tics.Trace class are not generated unless the TRACE symbol is defined
447 (either through a "#define TRACE") in your source code, or by using the
448 --define TRACE in the command line.
449 By default calls to methods and properties in the System.Diagnos‐
451 tics.Debug class are not generated unless the DEBUG symbol is defined
452 (either through a "#define DEBUG") in your source code, or by using the
453 --define DEBUG in the command line.
454 Note that the effect of defining TRACE and DEBUG is a global setting,
456 even if they are only defined in a single file.
457
459 When using the "-debug" flag, MCS will generate a file with the exten‐
460 sion .mdb that contains the debugging information for the generated
461 assembly. This file is consumed by the Mono debugger (mdb).
462
464 MCS_COLORS
465 If this variable is set, it contains a string in the form "fore‐
466 ground,background" that specifies which color to use to display
467 errors on some terminals.
468 The background is optional and defaults to your terminal current
470 background. The possible colors for foreground are: black,
471 red, brightred, green, brightgreen, yellow, brightyellow, blue,
472 brightblue, magenta, brightmagenta, cyan, brightcyan, grey,
473 white and brightwhite.
474 The possible colors for background are: black, red, green, yel‐
476 low, blue, magenta, cyan, grey and white.
477 For example, you could set these variable from your shell:
479 export MCS_COLORS
480 MCS_COLORS=errors=brightwhite,red
481 You can disable the built-in color scheme by setting this vari‐
483 able to "disable".
484
486 During compilation the MCS compiler defines the __MonoCS__ symbol, this
487 can be used by pre-processor instructions to compile Mono C# compiler
488 specific code. Please note that this symbol is only to test for the
489 compiler, and is not useful to distinguish compilation or deployment
490 platforms.
491
493 The Mono C# Compiler was written by Miguel de Icaza, Ravi Pratap, Mar‐
494 tin Baulig, Marek Safar and Raja Harinath. The development was funded
495 by Ximian, Novell and Marek Safar.
496
498 The Mono Compiler Suite is released under the terms of the GNU GPL or
499 the MIT X11. Please read the accompanying `COPYING' file for details.
500 Alternative licensing for the compiler is available from Novell.
501
503 csharp(1), mdb(1), mono(1), mopen(1), mint(1), pkg-config(1),sn(1)
504
506 To report bugs in the compiler, you must file them on our bug tracking
507 system, at: http://www.mono-project.com/Bugs
508
510 The Mono Mailing lists are listed at http://www.mono-project.com/Mail‐
511 ing_Lists
512
514 The Mono C# compiler was developed by Novell, Inc (http://www.nov‐
515 ell.com, http) and is based on the ECMA C# language standard available
516 here: http://www.ecma.ch/ecma1/STAND/ecma-334.htm
517 The home page for the Mono C# compiler is at http://www.mono-
519 project.com/CSharp_Compiler
520 6 January 2001 mcs(1)