scriptcs makes it easy to write and execute C# with a simple text editor.
While Visual Studio, and other IDEs, are powerful tools, they can sometimes hinder productivity more than they promote it. You don’t always need, or want, the overhead of a creating a new solution or project. Sometimes you want to just type away in your favorite text editor.
scriptcs frees you from Visual Studio, without sacrificing the advantages of a strongly-typed language.
Releases and nightly builds should be installed using Chocolatey. To install Chocolatey, execute the following command in your command prompt:
@powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Command "iex ((New-Object Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))" && SET PATH=%PATH%;%systemdrive%\chocolatey\bin
If the above fails with the error indicating that proxy authentication is required (i.e. HTTP 407) then try again with the following on the command prompt that uses your default credentials:
@powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Command "[Net.WebRequest]::DefaultWebProxy.Credentials = [Net.CredentialCache]::DefaultCredentials; iex ((New-Object Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))" && SET PATH=%PATH%;%systemdrive%\chocolatey\bin
Note: If you are using a version of Chocolatey > 0.9.9.0 you can pass the -y
into the install and upgrade commands to prevent the confirmation that will appear.
Once Chocolatey has been installed, you can install the latest stable version of scriptcs from your command prompt:
choco install scriptcs
Chocolatey will install scriptcs to %LOCALAPPDATA%\scriptcs\
and update your PATH accordingly.
Note: You may need to restart your command prompt after the installation completes.
With Chocolatey, keeping scriptcs updated is just as easy:
choco upgrade scriptcs
Note: If you are using a version of Chocolatey < 0.9.0.0 you will need to use choco update scriptcs
, but also think about updating Chocolatey itself.
Nightly builds are hosted on MyGet, and can also be installed through with Chocolatey:
choco install scriptcs -pre -source https://www.myget.org/F/scriptcsnightly/
Ensure you have .NET Framework 4.6.1 installed.
Execute the build script.
build.cmd
Ensure you have Mono 5.12 or later installed.
Execute the build script
./build.sh
The scriptcs REPL can be started by running scriptcs without any parameters. The REPL allows you to execute C# statements directly from your command prompt.
C:\> scriptcs
scriptcs (ctrl-c or blank to exit)
> var message = "Hello, world!";
> Console.WriteLine(message);
Hello, world!
>
C:\>
REPL supports all C# language constructs (i.e. class definition, method definition), as well as multi-line input. For example:
C:\> scriptcs
scriptcs (ctrl-c or blank to exit)
> public class Test {
public string Name { get; set; }
}
> var x = new Test { Name = "Hello" };
> x
{Name: "Hello"}
C:\>
app.csx
:using Raven.Client;
using Raven.Client.Embedded;
using Raven.Client.Indexes;
Console.WriteLine("Starting RavenDB server...");
using (var documentStore = new EmbeddableDocumentStore { UseEmbeddedHttpServer = true })
{
documentStore.Initialize();
Console.WriteLine($"RavenDB started, listening on http://localhost:{documentStore.Configuration.Port}");
Console.ReadKey();
}
scriptcs -install RavenDB.Embedded
> scriptcs app.csx
INFO : Starting to create execution components
INFO : Starting execution
Starting RavenDB server...
.. snip ..
RavenDB started, listening on http://localhost:8080.
Script Packs can be used to further reduce the amount of code you need to write when working with common frameworks.
ControllerResolver
with a custom implementation that allows Web API to discover controllers declared in scripts.scriptcs -install ScriptCs.WebApi
Require<TScriptPack>()
. Create a file named server.csx
that contains the following code:public class TestController : ApiController {
public string Get() {
return "Hello world!";
}
}
var webApi = Require<WebApi>();
var server = webApi.CreateServer("http://localhost:8888");
server.OpenAsync().Wait();
Console.WriteLine("Listening...");
Console.ReadKey();
server.CloseAsync().Wait();
server.csx
file.scriptcs server.csx
<string xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/10/Serialization/">Hello world!</string>
Move the TestController class from the previous example into a new file named controller.csx
with the following content.
On the first line of server.csx
, reference controller.csx
using the #load directive. Note: #load directives must be placed at the top of a script, otherwise they will be ignored.
#load "controller.csx"
server.csx
file.scriptcs server.csx
<string xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/10/Serialization/">Hello world!</string>
You can reference additional assemblies from the GAC or from the bin
folder in your script's directory using the #r directive:
#r "nunit.core.dll"
#r "nunit.core.interfaces.dll"
var path = "UnitTests.dll";
var runner = TestSetup.GetRunner(new[] {path});
var result = runner.Run(new ConsoleListener(msg => Console.WriteLine(msg)), TestFilter.Empty, true, LoggingThreshold.All);
Console.ReadKey();
Instructions for debugging scripts using Visual Studio can be found on the wiki.
You can install any NuGet packages directly from the scriptcs CLI. This will pull the relevant packages from NuGet, and install them in the scriptcs_packages folder.
Once the packages are installed, you can simply start using them in your script code directly (just import the namespaces - no additional bootstrapping or DLL referencing is needed).
The install
command will also create a scriptcs_packages.config
file if you don't have one - so that you can easily redistribute your script (without having to copy the package binaries).
scriptcs -install {package name}
will install the desired package from NuGet.
For example:
scriptcs -install ServiceStack
scriptcs -install
(without package name) will look for the scriptcs_packages.config
file located in the current execution directory, and install all the packages specified there. You only need to specify top level packages.
For example, you might create the following scriptcs_packages.config
:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<packages>
<package id="Nancy.Hosting.Self" version="0.16.1" targetFramework="net40" />
<package id="Nancy.Bootstrappers.Autofac" version="0.16.1" targetFramework="net40" />
<package id="Autofac" version="2.6.3.862" targetFramework="net40" />
</packages>
And then just call:
scriptcs -install
As a result, all packages specified in the scriptcs_packages.config
, including all dependencies, will be downloaded and installed in the scriptcs_packages
folder.
Additional samples can be contributed to our samples repository. Documentation can be found on our wiki.
Want to chat? In addition to Twitter, you can find us on Google Groups and JabbR!