+.de Sp \" Vertical space (when we can't use .PP)
+.if t .sp .5v
+.if n .sp
+..
.TH mcs 1 "6 January 2001"
.SH NAME
-mcs \- Mono Compiler Suite.
+mcs, gmcs, smcs \- Mono C# Compiler (1.0, 2.0, Moonlight)
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B mcs
[option] [source-files]
.SH DESCRIPTION
mcs is the Mono C# compiler, an implementation of the ECMA-334
-specification. You can pass one or more options to drive the
+language specification. You can pass one or more options to drive the
compiler, and a set of source files. Extra options or arguments can
be provided in a response file. Response files are referenced by
prepending the @ symbol to the response file name.
.PP
+The
+.I mcs
+compiler is used to compile against the 1.x profile and implements
+C# 1.0 and parts of C# 2.0 and C# 3.0 specification which do not depend
+on generics.
+.PP
+The
+.I gmcs
+compiler is used to compile against the 2.0 profile and implements
+the complete C# 3.0 specification.
+.PP
+The
+.I smcs
+compiler is used to compile against the Silverlight/Moonlight profile.
+This profile is designed to be used for creating Silverlight/Moonlight
+applications that will run on a web browser. The API exposed by this
+profile is a small subset of the 3.5 API (even if it is commonly
+referred as the 2.1 API, this API is a small subset of 2.0 with a few
+extensions).
+.PP
+See the section on packages for more information.
+.PP
+The Mono C# compiler accepts the same command line options that the
+Microsoft C# compiler does. Those options can start with a slash or a
+dash (/checked is the same as -checked). Additionally some GNU-like
+options are supported, those begin with "--". All MCS-specific flags
+which are not available in the Microsoft C# compiler are available
+only with the GNU-style options.
+.PP
C# source files must end with a ".cs" extension. Compilation of C#
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
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 C# 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 C# compiler
.TP
-.I \-\-checked
+.I \-\-addmodule:MODULE1[,MODULE2]
+Includes the specified modules in the resulting assembly. Modules are
+created by calling the compiler with the -target:module option
+.TP
+.I -checked, -checked+
Sets the default compilation mode to `checked'. This makes all
the math operations checked (the default is unchecked).
.TP
-.I \-\-define SYMBOL
-Defines a symbol named SYMBOL. This can be tested in the source code
-by the pre-processor.
+.I -checked-
+Sets the default compilation mode to `unchecked'. This makes all
+the math operations unchecked (this is the default).
+.TP
+.I -clscheck-, -clscheck+
+Disables or enables the Common Language Specification (CLS) checks (it
+is enabled by default).
+.Sp
+The Common Language Specification (CLS) defines an interoperable
+subset of types as well as conventions that compilers (CLS producers)
+and developers must follow to expose code to other programming
+languages (CLS consumers).
+.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
+environment-dependent native code page. The compiler will also automatically
+detect Unicode files that have an embedded byte mark at the beginning.
+.Sp
+Other popular encodings are 28591 (Latin1), 1252 (iso-8859-1) and 65001 (UTF-8).
+.Sp
+MCS 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 separated 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, \-debug+
+Generate debugging information. To obtain stack traces with debugging
+information, you need to invoke the mono runtime with the `--debug'
+flag. This debugging information is stored inside the assembly as a
+resource.
+.TP
+.I \-debug-
+Do not generate debugging information.
+.TP
+.I \-delaysign+
+Only embed the strongname public key into the assembly. The actual
+signing must be done in a later stage using the SN tool. This is useful
+to protect the private key during development. Note that delay signing
+can only be done using a strongname key file (not a key container). The
+option is equivalent to including [assembly: AssemblyDelaySign (true)]
+in your source code. Compiler option takes precedence over the
+attributes.
+.TP
+.I \-delaysign-
+Default. Strongname (sign) the assembly using the strong name key file
+(or container). The option is equivalent to including [assembly:
+AssemblyDelaySign (false)] in your source code. Compiler option takes
+precedence over the attributes.
+.TP
+.I \-doc:FILE
+Extracts the C#/XML documentation from the source code and stores in in
+the given FILE.
+.TP
+.I \-errorreport
+This flag is ignored by Mono's C# compiler and is present only to
+allow MCS to be used as a CSC replacement for msbuild/xbuild.
.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 \-\-stacktrace
-Generates a stack trace at the time the error is reported, useful for
-debugging the compiler.
+.I \-filealign
+This flag is ignored by Mono's C# compiler and is present only to
+allow MCS to be used as a CSC replacement for msbuild/xbuild.
+.TP
+.I \-keyfile:KEYFILE
+Strongname (sign) the output assembly using the key pair present in
+the specified strong name key file (snk). A full key pair is required
+by default (or when using delaysign-). A file containing only the
+public key can be used with delaysign+. The option is equivalent to
+including [assembly: AssemblyKeyFile ("KEYFILE")] in your source code.
+Compiler option takes precedence over the attributes.
+.TP
+.I \-keycontainer:CONTAINER
+Strongname (sign) the output assembly using the key pair present in
+the specified container. Note that delaysign+ is ignored when using
+key containers. The option is equivalent to including [assembly:
+AssemblyKeyName ("CONTAINER")] in your source code. Compiler option
+takes precedence over the attributes.
+.TP
+.I \-langversion:TEXT
+The option specifies the version of the language to use. The feature
+set is different in each C# version. This switch can be used to force
+the compiler to allow only a subset of the features.
+The possible values are:
+.RS
+.ne 8
+.TP
+.I "Default"
+Instruct compiler to use the latest version. Equivalent is to omit the
+switch (this currently defaults to the C# 3.0 language specification).
+.TP
+.I "ISO-1"
+Restrict compiler to use only first ISO standardized features.
+The usage of features such as generics, static classes, anonymous
+methods will lead to error.
+.TP
+.I "ISO-2"
+Restrict compiler to use only the second ISO standardized features.
+This allows the use of generics, static classes, iterators and
+anonymous methods for example.
+.TP
+.I "3"
+Restrict the compiler to use only the features available in C# 3.0
+(a superset of ISO-1 and ISO-2).
+.TP
+.I "future"
+Enables features from upcoming versions of the language. As of
+May 2009 this includes support for C# 4 as released in Visual Studio 2010 beta 1.
+.PP
+Notice that this flag only controls the language features available to
+the programmer, it does not control the kind of assemblies produced.
+Programs compiled with mcs will reference the 1.1 APIs, Programs
+compiled with gmcs reference the 2.0 APIs.
+.ne
+.RE
+.TP
+.I -lib: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.
+Multiple paths can be provided by using the option multiple times.
+.TP
+.I \-main:CLASS
+Tells the compiler which CLASS contains the entry point. Useful when
+you are compiling several classes with a Main method.
.TP
-.I \-\-nostdlib
+.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 \-\-nowarn XXX
-Makes the compiler ignore warning XXX.
+.I \-noconfig, \-noconfig+
+Disables the default compiler configuration to be loaded. The
+compiler by default has references to the system assemblies.
.TP
-.I \-o FNAME
-Names the output file to be generated.
+.I \-nowarn:WARNLIST
+Makes the compiler ignore warnings specified in the comma-separated
+list WARNLIST>
.TP
-.I \-\-optimize
-Turns on optimizations in the compiler.
+.I -optimize, -optimize+, -optimize-
+Controls whether to perform optimizations on the code. -optimize and
+-optimize+ will turn on optimizations, -optimize- will turn it off.
+The default in mcs is to optimize+.
+.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.
.TP
-.I \-\-probe X L
-Probes for the code to generate an error named `X' in line `L'. This
-is only used by the test suite.
+.I \-pkg:package1[,packageN]
+Reference assemblies for the given packages.
+.Sp
+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.
+.Sp
+This is typically used with third party components, like this:
+.nf
+
+ $ mcs -pkg:gtk-sharp demo.cs
+.fi
+.RS
+.ne 8
+.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 libraries, only the System.* ones. This
+is a convenient shortcut for those porting code.
+.TP
+.I \-pkg:olive
+Use this to reference the "Olive" libraries (the 3.0 and 3.5 extended
+libraries).
+.TP
+.I \-pkg:silver
+References the assemblies for creating Moonlight/Silverlight
+applications. This is automatically used when using the
+.I smcs
+compiler, but it is here when developers want to use it with the
+.I gmcs
+compiler.
+.TP
+.I \-pkg:silverdesktop
+Use this option to create Moonlight/Silverlight applications that
+target the desktop. This option allows developers to consume the
+Silverlight APIs with the full 2.0 profile API available to them,
+unlike
+.I smcs
+it gives full access to all the APIs that are part of Mono. The only
+downside is that applications created with silverdesktop will not run
+on the browser. Typically these applications will be launched
+with the
+.I mopen
+command line tool.
+.TP
+For more details see the PACKAGE section in this document
+.ne
+.RE
+.TP
+.I \-platform:ARCH
+Used to specify the target platform. The possible values are: anycpu,
+x86, x64 or itanium. As of June 2009, the Mono runtime only have support
+to emit anycpu and x86 assemblies.
+.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 \-\-target KIND
-Used to specify the desired target. The possible values are: exe,
-winexe, library and module.
+.I -r:ASSEMBLY1[,ASSEMBLY2], \-reference 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.
+.Sp
+You can also use a semicolon to separate the assemblies instead of a
+comma.
+.TP
+.I -reference:ALIAS=ASSEMBLY
+Extern alias reference support for C#.
+.Sp
+If you have different assemblies that provide the same types, the
+extern alias support allows you to provide names that your software
+can use to tell those appart. The types from ASSEMBLY will be
+exposed as ALIAS, then on the C# source code, you need to do:
+.Sp
+.nf
+ extern alias ALIAS;
+.fi
+To bring it into your namespace. For example, to cope with two
+graphics libraries that define "Graphics.Point", one in
+"OpenGL.dll" and one in "Postscript.dll", you would invoke the
+compiler like this:
+.Sp
+.nf
+ mcs -r:Postscript=Postscript.dll -r:OpenGL=OpenGL.dll
+.fi
+.Sp
+And in your source code, you would write:
+.Sp
+.nf
+ extern alias Postscript;
+ extern alias OpenGL;
+
+ class X {
+ // This is a Graphics.Point from Postscrip.dll
+ Postscript.Point p = new Postscript.Point ();
+
+ // This is a Graphics.Point from OpenGL.dll
+ OpenGL.Point p = new OpenGL.Point ();
+ }
+.fi
+.TP
+.I \-recurse:PATTERN, --recurse PATTERN
+Does recursive compilation using the specified pattern. In Unix the
+shell will perform globbing, so you might want to use it like this:
+.PP
+.nf
+ $ mcs -recurse:'*.cs'
+.fi
+.TP
+.I \-\-shell
+Starts up the compiler in interactive mode, providing a C# shell for
+statements and expressions. A shortcut is to use the
+.I csharp
+command directly.
+.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 \-\-unsafe
+.I \-unsafe, -unsafe+
Enables compilation of unsafe code.
.TP
-.I \-\-werror
-Treat warnings as errors.
+.I \-v
+Debugging. Turns on verbose yacc parsing.
+.TP
+.I \-\-version
+Shows the compiler version.
+.TP
+.I \-warnaserror, \-warnaserror+
+All compilers warnings will be reported as errors.
+.TP
+.I \-warnaserror:W1,[Wn], -warnaserror+:W1,[Wn]
+Treats one or more compiler warnings as errors.
.TP
-.I \-\-wlevel LEVEL
+.I \-warnaserror-:W1,[Wn]
+Sets one or more compiler warnings to be always threated as warnings.
+Becomes useful when used together with -warnaserror.
+.TP
+.I \-warn:LEVEL
Sets the warning level. 0 is the lowest warning level, and 4 is the
-highest. The default is 2.
+highest. The default is 4.
.TP
-.I \-r ASSEMBLY
-Reference the named assembly. Use this to use classes from the named
-assembly in your program.
+.I \-win32res:FILE
+Specifies a Win32 resource file (.res) to be bundled into the
+resulting assembly.
.TP
-.I \-v
-Debugging. Turns on verbose yacc parsing.
+.I \-win32icon:FILE
+Attaches the icon specified in FILE on the output into the resulting
+assembly.
+.TP
+.I \-\-
+Use this to stop option parsing, and allow option-looking parameters
+to be passed on the command line.
+.PP
+.SH PACKAGES AND LIBRARIES
+When referencing an assembly, if the name of the assembly is a path,
+the compiler will try to load the assembly specified in the path. If
+it does not, then the compiler will try loading the assembly from the
+current directory, the compiler base directory and if the assembly is
+not found in any of those places in the directories specified as
+arguments to the -lib: command argument.
.PP
+Depending on the invocation for the C# compiler (mcs, gmcs, or smcs)
+you will get a default set of libraries and versions of those
+libraries that are referenced.
+.PP
+The compiler uses the library path to locate libraries, and is able to
+reference libraries from a particular package if that directory is
+used. To simplify the use of packages, the C# compiler includes the
+-pkg: command line option that is used to load specific collections of
+libraries.
+.PP
+Libraries visible to the compiler are stored relative to the
+installation prefix under PREFIX/lib/mono/ called the PACKAGEBASE and the
+defaults for mcs, gmcs and smcs are as follows:
+.TP
+.I mcs
+References the PACKAGEBASE/1.0 directory
+.TP
+.I gmcs
+References the PACKAGEBASE/2.0 directory
+.TP
+.I smcs
+References the PACKAGEBASE/2.1 directory
+.PP
+Those are the only runtime profiles that exist. Although other
+directories exist (like 3.0 and 3.5) those are not really runtime
+profiles, they are merely placeholders for extra libraries that build
+on the 2.0 foundation.
+.PP
+Software providers will distribute software that is installed relative
+to the PACKAGEBASE directory. This is integrated into the
+.I gacutil
+tool that not only installs public assemblies into the Global Assembly
+Cache (GAC) but also installs them into the PACKAGEBASE/PKG directory
+(where PKG is the name passed to the -package flag to gacutil).
+.PP
+As a developer, if you want to consume the Gtk# libraries, you would
+invoke the compiler like this:
+.nf
+
+ $ mcs -pkg:gtk-sharp-2.0 main.cs
+
+.fi
+The -pkg: option instructs the compiler to fetch the definitions for
+gtk-sharp-2.0 from pkg-config, this is equivalent to passing to the C#
+compiler the output of:
+.nf
+
+ $ pkg-config --libs gtk-sharp-2.0
+
+.fi
+Usually this merely references the libraries from PACKAGEBASE/PKG.
+.PP
+Although there are directory names for 3.0 and 3.5, that does not mean
+that there are 3.0 and 3.5 compiler editions or profiles. Those are
+merely new libraries that must be manually referenced either with the
+proper -pkg: invocation, or by referencing the libraries directly.
+.PP
+.SH SPECIAL DEFINES
+The
+.B TRACE
+and
+.B DEBUG
+defines have a special meaning to the compiler.
+.PP
+By default calls to methods and properties in the
+System.Diagnostics.Trace class are not generated unless the TRACE
+symbol is defined (either through a "#define TRACE") in your source
+code, or by using the
+.I "--define TRACE"
+in the command line.
+.PP
+By default calls to methods and properties in the
+System.Diagnostics.Debug class are not generated unless the DEBUG
+symbol is defined (either through a "#define DEBUG") in your source
+code, or by using the
+.I "--define DEBUG"
+in the command line.
+.PP
+Note that the effect of defining TRACE and DEBUG is a global setting,
+even if they are only defined in a single file.
+.PP
+.SH DEBUGGING SUPPORT
+When using the "-debug" flag, MCS will generate a file with the
+extension .mdb that contains the debugging information for the
+generated assembly. This file is consumed by the Mono debugger (mdb).
+.SH ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
+.TP
+.I "MCS_COLORS"
+If this variable is set, it contains a string in the form
+"foreground,background" that specifies which color to use to display
+errors on some terminals.
+.Sp
+The background is optional and defaults to your terminal current
+background. The possible colors for foreground are:
+.B black, red, brightred, green, brightgreen, yellow, brightyellow,
+blue, brightblue, magenta, brightmagenta, cyan, brightcyan, grey,
+white and brightwhite.
+.Sp
+The possible colors for background are: black, red, green, yellow,
+blue, magenta, cyan, grey and white.
+.Sp
+For example, you could set these variable from your shell:
+.nf
+ export MCS_COLORS
+ MCS_COLORS=errors=brightwhite,red
+.fi
+.Sp
+You can disable the built-in color scheme by setting this variable to
+"disable".
+.SH NOTES
+During compilation the MCS compiler defines the __MonoCS__ symbol,
+this can be used by pre-processor instructions to compile Mono C#
+compiler specific code. Please note that this symbol is only to test
+for the compiler, and is not useful to distinguish compilation or
+deployment platforms.
.SH AUTHORS
-The Mono C# Compiler was written by Miguel de Icaza and Ravi Pratap at
-Ximian.
+The Mono C# Compiler was written by Miguel de Icaza, Ravi Pratap,
+Martin Baulig, Marek Safar and Raja Harinath. The development was
+funded by Ximian, Novell and Marek Safar.
.PP
.SH LICENSE
-The Mono Compiler Suite is released under the terms of the GNU GPL.
-Please read the accompanying `COPYING' file for details. Alternative
-licenses are available from Ximian.
+The Mono Compiler Suite is released under the terms of the GNU GPL or
+the MIT X11. Please read the accompanying `COPYING' file for details.
+Alternative licensing for the compiler is available from Novell.
+.PP
+.SH SEE ALSO
+csharp(1), mdb(1), mono(1), mopen(1), mint(1), pkg-config(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.
+To report bugs in the compiler, you must file them on our bug tracking
+system, at:
+http://www.mono-project.com/Bugs
.SH MAILING LIST
-The Mono Mailing List is available at: mono-list-request@ximian.com
+The Mono Mailing lists are listed at http://www.mono-project.com/Mailing_Lists
.SH MORE INFORMATION
-The Mono C# compiler is developed by Ximian, Inc
-(http://www.ximian.com) (http://www.ximian.com) and is based on the
+The Mono C# compiler was developed by Novell, Inc
+(http://www.novell.com, http) and is based on the
ECMA C# language standard available here:
http://www.ecma.ch/ecma1/STAND/ecma-334.htm
-
-
+.PP
+The home page for the Mono C# compiler is at http://www.mono-project.com/CSharp_Compiler
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