How to compile a Visual Studio C# Project with Mono

c# visual-studio compiler-construction mono
Alasdair picture Alasdair · Nov 25, 2011 · Viewed 89.8k times · Source

I'm new to this, and don't know where to start.

I want to compile a Visual Studio C# project with Mono on Linux (by command line).

The main.cs file includes these references:

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Drawing.Imaging;
using System.Net;
using System.Text;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
using System.Xml;
using iTextSharp.text;
using iTextSharp.text.pdf;

I have no idea whether I need to note the references to the compiler, or whether it will pull them in itself, whether it will know where to look for them or not. I've never done this before. But I just need to compile this project.

Thank you!

Answer

knocte picture knocte · Nov 25, 2011

Have you tried xbuild? It's the MSBuild equivalent on the Mono world. If MSBuild is able to compile your project in Windows, xbuild should be able to do the same on Linux (if it doesn't, file a bug in Bugzilla).

UPDATE: Nowadays, Mono developers/packagers are in the process of bundling the original (and recently opensourced) MSBuild, which is now crossplatform. For example it's already available in the latest Mono installers for Mac, so you can use the command-line program msbuild to build your project/solutions (note: still a long way to go to be bundled by Linux distros because msbuild depends on nuget packages, aka binary blobs).

Related questions

Benefits of 'Optimize code' option in Visual Studio build

Much of our C# release code is built with the 'Optimize code' option turned off. I believe this is to allow code built in Release mode to be debugged more easily. Given that we are creating fairly simple desktop software …

Read More
How do I remedy "The breakpoint will not currently be hit. No symbols have been loaded for this document." warning?

A C# desktop application on the express edition worked, but then it didn't work 5 seconds later. I tried the following: Ensure debug configuration, debug flag, and full debug information are set on all assemblies. Delete all bin and obj folders …

Read More
Writing to output window of Visual Studio

I am trying to write a message to the output window for debugging purposes. I searched for a function like Java's system.out.println(""). I tried Debug.Write, Console.Write, and Trace.Write. It does not give an error, but …

Read More