Many people have contacted us and asked when the next public beta of X# will be available.
I am happy to announce that this beta will be available by the end of this week.
Compared to the version that we released last February many things have changed. For example:
To make the language more VO/Vulcan compatible:
- The compiler recognizes the complete VO syntax, so also Codeblocks, Field statements, Workarea alias etc.
- The compiler can consume the USUAL type, ARRAY, DATE etc from a Vulcan runtime assembly (in what we call Bring Your Own Runtime mode)
- We have added support for "Clipper Calling Convention"
- The compiler can produce late bound code (methods and properties can be called on variables of type USUAL and OBJECT)
- We have implemented most of the /VO compatibilty compiler options that Vulcan has
- We have added support for String2Psz() and Cast2Psz() and some other intrinsic functions such as SLen(), AltD(), PCOUNT() and _GETMPARAM()
- We have added several preprocessor macros, such __ENTITY__, __DIALECT__, __VERSION__ etc
- We have added support for the &() macro operator
- We have added support for BEGIN SEQUENCE .. END
- We have added a new /vo15 compiler option. With this option you can disable the (VO and Vulcan) behavior that declarations without type will automatically become 'AS USUAL'
- All the code compiled by the X# compiler in the Vulcan Dialect will be recognized as "true Vulcan code" by the Vulcan compiler, so you can mix the two if you want or have to.
New features (also in the Core dialect)
- Support for the DYNAMIC type
- Support for BEGIN USING .. END USING (similar to the using statement in C#)
- Support for "interpolated strings"
- Support for Lambda expressions with multiple expressions or even statements and statement lists
- a new syntax for 'complex events'
- Support for the NameOf() intrinsic function
- Support for BEGIN FIXED .. END FIXED (similar to the fixed statement in C#)
Also many changes were made in the Visual Studio integration such as:
- Support for the Windows Forms Editor (including separate .designer.prg)
- Support for the WPF Editor
- Several project and item templates have been added
- Support for the Native Resource Compiler
- Better support for Side by Side installation with Vulcan.NET
Please stay tuned. More news will follow by the end of this week.