Installation

FSharp.Compiler.CodeDom supports installation via both NuGet and system-wide. NuGet installation allows for basic use of the library within your application or library. A system-wide installation enables any CodeDom-capable program or library to make use of the library, but requires administrator access (on Windows) or write permission to the Mono GAC and machine.config file (on Unix). A system-wide install can coexist with individual NuGet installs.

To perform a system-wide install on Windows, build the library from the command line with build Release. A MSI package will be produced in Installer\Installer\bin\Release. After installation, the library will be available for use.

To perform a system-wide install on Unix, build the library from the command line with build Release. Navigate to SimpleInstaller/bin/Release, and then, as a user with permission to write to the Mono GAC directory (e.g. /usr/lib/mono/gac) and machine.config file (e.g. /etc/mono/4.5/machine.config), run:

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$ gacutil -i FSharp.Compiler.CodeDom.dll
$ mono /usr/lib/mono/4.5/installutil.exe SimpleInstaller.dll

Uninstallation

On Windows, uninstallation can be performed through Add/Remove Programs, PowerShell, etc.

On Unix, as a user with the aforementioned privileges:

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$ gacutil -u FSharp.Compiler.CodeDom # from any directory
$ mono /usr/lib/mono/4.5/installutil.exe /uninstall SimpleInstaller.dll

As an alternative to using SimpleInstaller, the FSharp.Compiler.CodeDom line under <system.codedom> can be manually deleted from machine.config.

A note on CodeDom providers

CodeDom provides a mechanism that allows for programs which use CodeDom to generate code for any language for which a provider is installed--the program need not have any knowledge of that language or the existence of a provider. Unfortunately, many programs (including ones from Microsoft!) are poorly written and hard-code a list of supported providers, usually to only C# and VB, destroying much of CodeDom's utility. Properly written programs should always allow the user to specify an arbitrary string (corresponding to a language with a system-registered provider) to be passed to System.CodeDom.Compiler.CodeDomProvider.CreateProvider. This way, there is no need to directly reference assemblies or hard-code providers, as any provider available to the system can be used.

Basic use of the provider (system-wide install)

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open System.IO
open System.CodeDom

let prov = Compiler.CodeDomProvider.CreateProvider "fs"

let ccu = CodeCompileUnit()
let nsp = CodeNamespace("MyNamespace")
let ty = CodeTypeDeclaration("MyClass")
let meth = CodeEntryPointMethod(Name="Main")
ty.Members.Add meth
nsp.Types.Add(ty) 
ccu.Namespaces.Add(nsp)

let options = Compiler.CodeGeneratorOptions()

let sw = new StringWriter()
prov.GenerateCodeFromCompileUnit(ccu,sw,options)
let code = sw.ToString()

Tutorial

First, reference the assembly (not needed if a system-wide install was done):

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#r "FSharp.Compiler.CodeDom.dll"

Next, create an instance of the provider:

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open System.CodeDom

// if system-wide:
let provider = Compiler.CodeDomProvider.CreateProvider "fs"

// OR, if NuGet:
open FSharp.Compiler.CodeDom
let provider = new FSharpCodeProvider()

// OR, if the clean code provider is desired, regardless of installation type:
open FSharp.Compiler.CodeDom
let provider = new FSharpCleanCodeProvider()

Now, add some Code DOM constructs to a code unit:

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let ccu = CodeCompileUnit()
let nsp = CodeNamespace("MyNamespace")
let ty = CodeTypeDeclaration("MyClass")
let meth = CodeEntryPointMethod(Name="Main")
ty.Members.Add meth
nsp.Types.Add(ty) 
ccu.Namespaces.Add(nsp)

Generate the code:

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let options = Compiler.CodeGeneratorOptions()

let sw = new System.IO.StringWriter()
provider.GenerateCodeFromCompileUnit(ccu,sw,options)
let code = sw.ToString()

• FSharp.Compiler.CodeDom
• Home page
• Get Library via NuGet
• Source Code on GitHub
• License
• Release Notes
• Getting started
• Sample tutorial
• Documentation
• API Reference