1vbnc(1) General Commands Manual vbnc(1)
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6 vbnc, vbnc2 - Mono Visual Basic Compiler.
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9 vbnc [option] [source-files]
10
12 (vbnc) is a CIL compiler for the VisualBasic.NET language.
13 Applications developed on Windows with vbc can execute on Mono and
15 applications compiled with 'vbnc' can be executed on .NET runtime.
16 The Mono Visual Basic compiler accepts the same options as the Micro‐
18 soft VB.NET compiler. Those options can start with a slash or a dash
19 (/checked is the same as -checked).
20 Visual Basic.NET source files normally ends with a ".vb" extension.
22 Compilation of VB.NET source code requires all the files that make up a
23 library, module or executable to be provided on the command line.
24 There is no support for partial compilation. To achieve the benefits
25 of partial compilation, you should compile programs into their own
26 assemblies, and later reference them with the "-r" flag.
27 The Mono Basic compiler generates images (.exe files) that contain CIL
29 byte code that can be executed by any system that implements a Common
30 Language Infrastructure virtual machine such as the Microsoft .NET run‐
31 time engine on Windows or the Mono runtime engine on Unix systems.
32 Executables are not bound to a specific CPU or operating system.
33 The Mono Basic compiler by default only references these assemblies:
35 mscorlib.dll, Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll, System.dll and System.Xml.dll.
36 If you want to reference extra libraries you must manually specify them
37 using the the -r: command line option.
38 The vbnc compiler is used to compile against the latest available pro‐
40 file (currently the 4.0 profile).
41 The vbnc2 compiler is used to compile against the 2.0 profile.
43
45 -addmodule:MODULE1[,MODULE2]
46 Includes the specified modules in the resulting assembly.
47 -codepage:ID
49 Specifies the code page used to process the input files from the
50 point it is specified on. By default files will be processed in
51 the current code page. The compiler will also automatically
52 detect Unicode/UTF8 files that have an embedded byte mark at the
53 beginning.
54 Other popular encodings are 28591 (Latin1), 1252 (iso-8859-1) and 65001
56 (UTF-8).
57 -define:SYMLIST, -d:SYMLIST
59 Defines the symbol listed by the semi-colon separeted list SYM‐
60 LIST SYMBOL. This can be tested in the source code by the pre-
61 processor, or can be used by methods that have been tagged with
62 the Conditional attribute.
63 -debug:AMOUNT
65 Specify the amount of debugging information to emit. Possible
66 values for AMOUNT are "full" and "pdbonly".
67 -imports:import-list
69 Declare global Imports for listed namespaces.
70 -ignorewarn:XXXX
72 Ignores warning number XXXX.
73 -lib:PATHLIST, -libpath:PATHLIST
75 Each path specified in the comma-separated list will direct the
76 compiler to look for libraries in that specified path.
77 -main:CLASS
79 Tells the compiler which CLASS or MODULE contains the entry
80 point. Useful when you are compiling several classes with a Main
81 method.
82 -nologo
84 Suppress printing copyright information on startup.
85 -nostdlib, -nostdlib+
87 Use this flag if you want to compile the core library. This
88 makes the compiler load its internal types from the assembly
89 being compiled.
90 -noconfig, -noconfig+
92 Disables the default compiler configuration to be loaded. The
93 compiler by default has references to the system assemblies.
94 -nowarn
96 Makes the compiler ignore warnings.
97 -optioncompare:binary, -optioncompare:text
99 Select between binary and text string comparisons. The default
100 is binary string comparisons.
101 -optionexplicit[+|-]
103 Require explicit declaration of variables
104 -optionstrict[+|-]
106 Enforce strict language semantics
107 -out:FNAME, -o FNAME
109 Names the output file to be generated.
110 -q -quiet
112 Commands the compiler to show only error messages for syntax-
113 related errors and warnings.
114 -resource:RESOURCE[,ID]
116 Embeds to the given resource file. The optional ID can be used
117 to give a different name to the resource. If not specified, the
118 resource name will be the file name.
119 -linkresource:RESOURCE[,ID]
121 Links to the specified RESOURCE. The optional ID can be used to
122 give a name to the linked resource.
123 -r:ASSEMBLY1[,ASSEMBLY2], -r ASSEMBLY1[,ASSEMBLY2]
125 Reference the named assemblies. Use this to use classes from
126 the named assembly in your program. The assembly will be loaded
127 from either the system directory where all the assemblies live,
128 or from the path explicitly given with the -L option.
129 You can also use a semicolon to separate the assemblies instead of a
131 comma.
132 -sdkpath:PATH
134 Sets the path to the required framework assemblies (mscorlib.dll
135 and Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll). To compile to a different pro‐
136 file than the default, use this option to the path to the mscor‐
137 lib.dll of the profile you want to compile to.
138 -removeintchecks[+|-]
140 Remove integer checks. Default off.
141 -rootnamespace:namespace
143 Specifies the root namespace for all type declarations
144 -target:KIND, -t:KIND
146 Used to specify the desired target. The possible values are:
147 exe (plain executable), winexe (Windows.Forms executable),
148 library (component libraries) and module (partial library).
149 -utf8output[+|-]
151 Emit compiler output in UTF8 character encoding. Currently
152 ignored.
153 --version
155 Shows the compiler version.
156 -warnaserror, -warnaserror+
158 Treat warnings as errors.
159
161 As of early 2011, the Mono Visual Basic compiler is still considered
162 beta software. The compiler is feature-complete (targeting the Micro‐
163 soft Visual Basic 8 compiler), however crashes are still occuring, most
164 notably with incorrect code.
165
167 See the ChangeLog for authors
168
170 The Mono Visual Basic compiler is released under the terms of the GNU
171 LGPL. Alternative licenses are available from Novell.
172
174 mcs(1), mono(1), mint(1), sn(1)
175
177 To report bugs in the compiler, you can file bug reports in our bug
178 tracking system: http://bugzilla.ximian.com.
179
181 The Mono Basic Mailing List is available at: mono-vb-list-
182 request@ximian.com
183 21 February 2006 vbnc(1)