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.

MAILING LIST

The Mono Basic Mailing List is available at: [email protected]