.NET Compiler Platform

.NET Compiler Platform, better known by its codename "Roslyn", is a set of open-source compilers and code analysis APIs for C# and Visual Basic.NET languages from Microsoft.[1]

The project notably includes self-hosting versions of the C# and VB.NET compilers – compilers written in the languages themselves. The compilers are available via the traditional command-line programs but also as APIs available natively from within .NET code. Roslyn exposes modules for syntactic (lexical) analysis of code, semantic analysis, dynamic compilation to CIL, and code emission.[2]

Roslyn is currently available as a preview for Visual Studio 2015.[3]

Features

History

Microsoft made a community technology preview (CTP) available for public download in October 2011. It installs as an extension to Visual Studio 2010 SP1.[4]

The CTP was updated on September 2012[5] to include many updates to the Roslyn APIs introduced in the June 2012 and October 2011 CTPs, including breaking changes.[6] While the June 2012 CTP API is complete for the compilers, not all features have been implemented for the C# and VB.NET languages.[7]

At the Build 2014 conference in San Francisco April 2014, Microsoft made the "Roslyn" project open-source and released a preview of the language integration for Visual Studio 2013. As of April 3, 2014, Roslyn is under the Apache License 2.0.[1] The project was effectively transferred under the stewardship of the newly founded .NET Foundation.[8] At the same conference, Xamarin announced that they are working on integrating the new compilers and tools in Xamarin Studio.

The compilers are not feature-complete in this release. Each of the compilers contains features that are planned for the coming language versions (C# 6 and Visual Basic.NET 14). The APIs are also available through the NuGet package manager.

On January 2015[9] Microsoft moved the Roslyn source code from CodePlex to GitHub.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 .NET Compiler Platform ("Roslyn") on GitHub
  2. ↑ Neil McAllister, Microsoft's Roslyn: Reinventing the compiler as we know it, DEVELOPER_WORLD, 2011-10-20
  3. ↑ .NET Compiler Platform ("Roslyn") site, 2014-04-07
  4. ↑ "Microsoft "Roslyn" CTP", Microsoft Download Center
  5. ↑ "Microsoft "Roslyn" CTP", Microsoft Download Center
  6. ↑ "What's New in the Microsoft "Roslyn" September 2012 CTP", Visual Studio vNext Forums
  7. ↑ "Known Limitations and Unimplemented Language Features", Visual Studio vNext Forums
  8. ↑ .NET Foundation – Open Source Foundation for the .NET Community
  9. ↑ "We're moving to GitHub!", MSDN VBTeam Blog, 2015-01-10

External links