NAME¶
vbnc, vbnc2 - Mono Visual Basic Compiler.
SYNOPSIS¶
vbnc [option] [source-files]
DESCRIPTION¶
(vbnc) is a CIL compiler for the VisualBasic.NET language.
Applications developed on Windows with vbc can execute on Mono and applications
compiled with 'vbnc' can be executed on .NET runtime.
The Mono Visual 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).
Visual Basic.NET source files normally ends 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.
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.
The Mono Basic compiler by default only references these assemblies:
mscorlib.dll, Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll, System.dll and System.Xml.dll. If you
want to reference extra libraries you must manually specify them using the the
-r: command line option.
The
vbnc compiler is used to compile against the latest available profile
(currently the 4.0 profile).
The
vbnc2 compiler is used to compile against the 2.0 profile.
OPTIONS¶
- -addmodule:MODULE1[,MODULE2]
- Includes the specified modules in the resulting
assembly.
- -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 current code page. The compiler will also automatically detect
Unicode/UTF8 files that have an embedded byte mark at the beginning.
- Other popular encodings are 28591 (Latin1), 1252
(iso-8859-1) and 65001 (UTF-8).
- -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.
- -debug:AMOUNT
- Specify the amount of debugging information to emit.
Possible values for AMOUNT are "full" and
"pdbonly".
- -imports:import-list
- Declare global Imports for listed namespaces.
- -ignorewarn:XXXX
- Ignores warning number XXXX.
- -lib:PATHLIST, -libpath:PATHLIST
- Each path specified in the comma-separated list will direct
the compiler to look for libraries in that specified path.
- -main:CLASS
- Tells the compiler which CLASS or MODULE contains the entry
point. Useful when you are compiling several classes with a Main
method.
- -nologo
- Suppress printing copyright information on startup.
- -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.
- -noconfig, -noconfig+
- Disables the default compiler configuration to be loaded.
The compiler by default has references to the system assemblies.
- -nowarn
- Makes the compiler ignore warnings.
- -optioncompare:binary, -optioncompare:text
- Select between binary and text string comparisons. The
default is binary string comparisons.
- -optionexplicit[+|-]
- Require explicit declaration of variables
- -optionstrict[+|-]
- Enforce strict language semantics
- -out:FNAME, -o FNAME
- Names the output file to be generated.
- -q -quiet
- Commands the compiler to show only error messages for
syntax-related errors and warnings.
- -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.
- -linkresource:RESOURCE[,ID]
- Links to the specified RESOURCE. The optional ID can be
used to give a name to the linked resource.
- -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.
You can also use a semicolon to separate the assemblies instead of a comma.
- -sdkpath:PATH
- Sets the path to the required framework assemblies
(mscorlib.dll and Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll). To compile to a different
profile than the default, use this option to the path to the mscorlib.dll
of the profile you want to compile to.
- -removeintchecks[+|-]
- Remove integer checks. Default off.
- -rootnamespace:namespace
- Specifies the root namespace for all type declarations
- -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).
- -utf8output[+|-]
- Emit compiler output in UTF8 character encoding. Currently
ignored.
- --version
- Shows the compiler version.
- -warnaserror, -warnaserror+
- Treat warnings as errors.
STABILITY¶
As of early 2011, the Mono Visual Basic compiler is still considered beta
software. The compiler is feature-complete (targeting the Microsoft Visual
Basic 8 compiler), however crashes are still occuring, most notably with
incorrect code.
AUTHORS¶
See the ChangeLog for authors
LICENSE¶
The Mono Visual Basic compiler is released under the terms of the GNU LGPL.
Alternative licenses are available from Novell.
SEE ALSO¶
mcs(1),
mono(1), mint(1),
sn(1)
BUGS¶
To report bugs in the compiler, you can file bug reports in our bug tracking
system:
http://bugzilla.ximian.com.
MAILING LIST¶
The Mono Basic Mailing List is available at:
mono-vb-list-request@ximian.com
