path: root/man/mbas.1

.TH mbas 1 "21 February 2006"
.SH NAME 
mbas \- Mono Basic Compiler.
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B mbas
[option] [source-files]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.PP
.I MonoBASIC (mbas) 
is a CIL compiler for the VisualBasic.NET language, an
extended version of Visual Basic.
.PP
Applications developed on Windows with vbc can execute on Mono and applications
compiled with 'mbas' can be executed on .NET runtime.
.PP
The Mono Basic compiler accepts the same options as  
the Microsoft VB.NET compiler. Those options can start with a slash or a 
dash (/checked is the same as -checked).  Additionally to this, the
GNU-like options are supported, those begin with "--".  All
-specific flags which are not available in the Microsoft VB.NET
compiler are available only with the GNU-style options. 
.PP
Visual Basic.NET source files must end with a ".vb" extension.  Compilation of 
VB.NET source code requires all the files that make up a library, module or
executable to be provided on the command line.  There is no support
for partial compilation.  To achieve the benefits of partial
compilation, you should compile programs into their own assemblies,
and later reference them with the "-r" flag.
.PP
The Mono Basic compiler generates images (.exe files) that contain 
CIL byte code that can be executed by any system that implements a Common
Language Infrastructure virtual machine such as the Microsoft .NET
runtime engine on Windows or the Mono runtime engine on Unix systems.
Executables are not bound to a specific CPU or operating system.
.PP
The Mono Basic compiler by default only references three assemblies:
mscorlib.dll, System.dll and System.Xml.dll.   If you want to
reference extra libraries you must manually specify them using the
-pkg: command line option or the -r: command line option.
Alternatively if you want to get all of the System libraries, you can
use the -pkg:dotnet command line option.
.PP
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.I \-\-about
Displays information about the Mono Basic compiler
.TP
.I \-\-addmodule:MODULE1[,MODULE2]
Includes the specified modules in the resulting assembly.  
.TP
.I -codepage:ID
Specifies the code page used to process the input files from the
point it is specified on.  By default files will be processed in the
Latin-1 code page.  The compiler will also automatically detect
Unicode files that have an embedded byte mark at the beginning.   
.TP
Other popular encodings are 28591 (Latin1), 1252 (iso-8859-1) and 65001 (UTF-8).
.TP 
Mono Basic supports a couple of shorthands: "utf8" can be used to specify utf-8 instead
of using the cryptic 65001 and "reset" restores the automatic handling of
code pages.  These shorthands are not available on the Microsoft compiler.
.TP
.I \-define:SYMLIST, -d:SYMLIST
Defines the symbol listed by the semi-colon separeted list SYMLIST
SYMBOL.  This can be tested in the source code by the pre-processor,
or can be used by methods that have been tagged with the Conditional
attribute. 
.TP
.I \-debug-args:arguments
Debugger arguments.
.TP
.I \-debug:AMOUNT
Specify the amount of debugging information to emit. Possible values for 
AMOUNT are "full" and "pdbonly".
.TP
.I \-~, \-debugoptions
Show debugging info while processing options.
.TP
.I \-\-fatal 
This is used for debugging the compiler.  This makes the error emission
generate an exception that can be caught by a debugger.
.TP
.I \-imports:import-list
Declare global Imports for listed namespaces. 
.TP
.I \-ignorewarn:XXXX
Ignores warning number XXXX.
.TP
.I -lib:PATHLIST, -libpath:PATHLIST
Each path specified in the comma-separated list will direct the
compiler to look for libraries in that specified path.
.TP
.I \-L PATH
Directs the compiler to look for libraries in the specified path.
Multiple paths can be provided by using the option multiple times.
.TP
.I \-main:CLASS
Tells the compiler which CLASS or MODULE contains the entry point. Useful when
you are compiling several classes with a Main method.
.TP
.I \-nologo
Suppress printing copyright information on startup.
.TP
.I \-nostdlib, -nostdlib+
Use this flag if you want to compile the core library.  This makes the
compiler load its internal types from the assembly being compiled.
.TP
.I \-noconfig, \-noconfig+
Disables the default compiler configuration to be loaded.  The
compiler by default has references to the system assemblies. 
.TP
.I \-nowarn
Makes the compiler ignore warnings.
.TP
.I \-optioncompare:binary, \-optioncompare:text 
Select between binary and text string comparisons. The default is binary 
string comparisons.
.TP
.I \-optionexplicit[+|-]
Require explicit declaration of variables
.TP
.I \-optionstrict[+|-]
Enforce strict language semantics
.TP
.I \-out:FNAME, -o FNAME
Names the output file to be generated.
.TP
.I \-\-parse
Used for benchmarking.  The compiler will only parse its input files. 
Currently ignored.
.TP
.I \-pkg:package1[,packageN]
The compiler will invoke pkg-config --libs on the set of packages
specified on the command line to obtain libraries and directories to
compile the code.
.PP
This is typically used with third party components, like this:
.nf
		$ mbas -pkg:gtk-sharp demo.vb
.fi
.TP
.TP
.I \-pkg:dotnet
This will instruct the compiler to reference the System.* libraries
available on a typical dotnet framework installation, notice that this
does not include all of the Mono libraies, only the System.* ones.  This
is a convenient shortcut for those porting code.
.TP
.I -q -quiet
Commands the compiler to show only error messages for syntax-related errors 
and warnings.
.TP
.I -resource:RESOURCE[,ID]
Embeds to the given resource file.  The optional ID can be used to
give a different name to the resource.  If not specified, the resource
name will be the file name.
.TP
.I -linkresource:RESOURCE[,ID]
Links to the specified RESOURCE.  The optional ID can be used to give
a name to the linked resource.
.TP
.I -r:ASSEMBLY1[,ASSEMBLY2], \-r ASSEMBLY1[,ASSEMBLY2]
Reference the named assemblies.  Use this to use classes from the named
assembly in your program.  The assembly will be loaded from either the
system directory where all the assemblies live, or from the path
explicitly given with the -L option.
.PP
You can also use a semicolon to separate the assemblies instead of a
comma. 
.TP
.I \-removeintchecks[+|-]
Remove integer checks. Default off.
.TP
.I \-rootnamespace:namespace
Specifies the root namespace for all type declarations
.TP
.I \-\-stacktrace
Generates a stack trace at the time the error is reported, useful for
debugging the compiler.
.TP
.I \-target:KIND, \-t:KIND
Used to specify the desired target.  The possible values are: exe
(plain executable), winexe (Windows.Forms executable), library
(component libraries) and module (partial library).
.TP
.I \-\-timestamp
Another debugging flag.  Used to display the times at various points
in the compilation process.
.TP
.I \-tokenize
Only tokenizes source files. Currently ignored.
.TP
.I \-unsafe, -unsafe+
Enables compilation of unsafe code.
.TP
.I \-utf8output[+|-]
Emit compiler output in UTF8 character encoding. Currently ignored.
.TP
.I \-v 
Debugging. Turns on verbose yacc parsing.
.TP
.I -. -verbosegetoptions
Show verbose parsing of options
.TP
.I \-\-version
Shows the compiler version.
.TP
.I \-warnaserror, \-warnaserror+
Treat warnings as errors.
.TP
.I \-wlevel:LEVEL
Sets the warning level.  0 is the lowest warning level, and 4 is the
highest.  The default is 2.
.TP
.I \-\-
Use this to stop option parsing, and allow option-looking parameters
to be passed on the command line.
.SH STABILITY
As of early 2006, the Mono Basic compiler is still considered alpha software.
Several language constructions that are accepted by the Microsoft Visual 
Basic.NET compiler are refused by the Mono Basic compiler. Occassional 
crashes also still occur.
.PP
.SH AUTHORS
See the ChangeLog for authors
.PP
.SH LICENSE
The Mono Basic compiler is released under the terms of the GNU GPL.
Please read the accompanying `COPYING' file for details.  Alternative
licenses are available from Ximian.
.PP
.SH SEE ALSO
mcs(1), mono(1), mint(1), sn(1)
.PP
.SH BUGS
To report bugs in the compiler, you can use `bug-buddy', or you can
file bug reports in our bug tracking system:
http://bugzilla.ximian.com.
.SH MAILING LIST
The Mono Basic Mailing List is available at: mono-vb-list-request@ximian.com