SharpDevelop

After a long pause, we have finally released the first Beta of ILSpy 2.0. Download: ILSpy 2.0.0.1564 Beta Binaries.zip ILSpy 2.0.0.1564 Beta Source Code.zip New features compared with version 1.0: Assembly Lists Support for decompiling ... [More] Expression trees Support for lifted operatores on nullables Integrated Debugger Decompile to Visual Basic Search for multiple strings separated by space (searching for "Assembly manager" in ILSpy.exe would find AssemblyListManager) Clicking on a local variable will highlight all other occurrences of that variable Ctrl+F can be used to search within the decompiled code view [Less]

In SharpDevelop 4.2 Beta we added a new feature which was partially developed by Tomas Linhart during GSoC 2010. Because it was never finished it took us some time to complete it after GSoC. One of the biggest changes after GSoC was the rewrite of ... [More] the core engine. The engine now uses the new NRefactory 5 Type System in combination with Mono.Cecil. It is nearly done now, only little changes to the UI will be made until the final release of SharpDevelop 4.2. To launch the addin, simply select Analysis > Analyze Code Quality from the main menu. First you have to select a set of assemblies from the file system. After the analyzer completes the matrix above will be shown. The colours are  quite simple: Green: left uses top Blue: left is used by top Turquoise: left uses and is used by top The numbers in the cells tell you how many dependencies there are from left to top or vice versa. For example this code: string M(string a) { return a.ToLower(); } It has three usages of the type System.String and one usage of the method System.String.ToLower. But in our matrix we show only one dependency on System.String, otherwise the numbers would be too noisy. This shows that there is one class from mscorlib involved in the method M. This is only a preview and I hope it is useful to you. If you have any suggestions or find bugs, please feel free to post a comment below or on the forums.   [Less]

SharpDevelop 4.2 now includes support for JavaScript code folding and code regions. When you open a JavaScript (.js) file into the text editor any functions that are defined can be folded. The text editor also supports code regions. ... [More] //#region Canvas Test tests['canvas'] = function() { var elem = document.createElement( 'canvas' ); return !!(elem.getContext && elem.getContext('2d')); }; //#endregion These regions can be folded as shown below. [Less]

One of the new features in SharpDevelop 4.2 is better support for ASP.NET MVC 3 applications. Previous versions contained project templates for ASP.NET MVC but not much more. With SharpDevelop 4.2 the following features ... [More] have been added: Razor project and file templates for C# and Visual Basic Razor syntax highlighting Add Controller dialog using T4 templates Add View dialog using T4 templates HTML folding Now let us take at these new features. Prerequisites Before using SharpDevelop you should install ASP.NET MVC 3 and IIS, either IIS Express or full IIS. You can get MVC 3 and IIS Express from Microsoft's Web Platform installer or download them directly from the following pages: ASP.NET MVC 3 IIS Express After installing IIS Express make sure that you run IISExpress.exe once so it can generate its configuration files for your user profile. If you do not then SharpDevelop will fail to configure IIS Express. Creating an ASP.NET MVC Application Now we shall create a new C# ASP.NET MVC application that uses the Razor view engine. First run SharpDevelop and then from the File menu select New Solution to open the New Project dialog. On the left in Categories select ASP.NET MVC under C#. On the right you will see three project templates. Empty MVC Application - creates an MVC application with a minimal set of files. MVC Application - creates an MVC application that uses the Web Forms view engine (.aspx). Razor MVC Application - creates an MVC application that uses the Razor view engine. Select the Razor MVC Application project template. Enter a name for the project and select a location where the project will be created. Click Create to create the MVC project. If you open the Projects window by selecting Projects from the View menu you will see that the project template created a Home Controller, two Razor view pages - Index and Contact, as well as installing the jQuery and Modernizer NuGet packages. Syntax Highlighting and Folding If you open the a Razor file (.cshtml) you will see that there is html folding and Razor syntax highlighting. The Razor syntax highlighting is still under development and does not work in all cases since it is not using Microsoft's Razor parser and uses a basic syntax definition file. In the screenshot above, for example, the Razor @ symbol is not correctly highlighted in the script and link tags. Running an ASP.NET MVC Application In order to be able to run your application first you will need to configure the project to use IIS Express or IIS. From the Project menu select Project Options. Select the Debug tab. At the bottom of this tab you will see options for IIS Express and IIS. For this walkthrough we will use IIS Express. Select IIS Express and enter a port number. Then click the Create Applicaton/Virtual Directory button. A message will then be displayed telling you that the application/virtual directory was created successfully. Now we can run the application. To run the application select Run from the Debug menu. IIS Express will then be launched and your application will be loaded into your default web browser. You can set breakpoints in your application and debug your code in the standard way. For example, set a breakpoint in the HomeController's Contact method and then click Contacts in your browser and you will see SharpDevelop stop at the breakpoint. To stop debugging select Stop process from the Debug menu. You will then see a prompt asking you to detach or terminate the process being debugged, in this case IIS Express. Detaching will leave IIS Express running. File Templates SharpDevelop includes a set of file templates for ASP.NET MVC applications. You can create a new file using these templates by selecting the project or a folder in the Projects window, right clicking and select Add New Item. Select the appropriate template, give the file a name and click Create to add a new file to your project. Add Controller Dialog You can add a new controller to your project using a file template as described in the previous section or you can use the Add Controller dialog. Select the Controllers folder in the Projects window, right click and select Add Controller to show the Add Controller dialog. In the dialog you specify the controller's name and select one of the templates that will be used to generate the controller class. These templates are defined by a single T4 template that you can edit if you want to customise it. The T4 template exists in the following subfolder where SharpDevelop was installed: AddIns\BackendBindings\AspNet.Mvc\ItemTemplates Click the Add button to create a new controller from the T4 template. Add View Dialog A new view can be created by using a file template or by using the Add View dialog. Select one of the Views folders, right click and select Add New View to show the Add View dialog. In the dialog you can specify the following items: View Name - specifies the name of the view View Engine - selects either web forms (ASPX) or Razor view engine. The options displayed in the dialog will change based on this selection. Strongly Typed - allows you to generate a view based on a type in your project. Model - a list of types in your project. You may have to compile your project for a class to be displayed in this drop down. Template - specifies which of the T4 templates will be used when generating the view. Templates available are - Empty, Create, Delete, Details, Edit, List. Use Layout (Razor) - specifies whether the view will use a layout. Layout (Razor) - specifies the path to the layout page. The browse button allows you to select a layout page from those in your project. User Master Page (ASPX) - specifies whether the view will use a master page. Master Page (ASPX) - specifies the path to the master page. The browse button allows you to select a master page from those in your project. Main Content ID (ASPX) - specifies the main content ID. Partial View - used to generate a partial view. Views generated from this dialog use T4 templates which exist in the following folder if you need to customise them: AddIns\BackendBindings\AspNet.Mvc\ItemTemplates That concludes the walkthrough of the new ASP.NET MVC 3 support in SharpDevelop. Further information on ASP.NET MVC 3 can be found at the Getting Started with ASP.NET MVC page. [Less]

Thanks to Yusuke Kamiyamane's Fugue Icons, and icons created and remixed by Michael Seeger, SharpDevelop 4.2 has a new look. A selection of before and after screenshots are shown below: SharpDevelop 4.1 Toolbar SharpDevelop 4.2 Toolbar SharpDevelop 4.1SharpDevelop 4.2

While hunting a bug related to Windows Forms, we decided to move the output pad to WPF. It now uses AvalonEdit instead of a textbox and we added support for file hyperlinks (C#, VB and NUnit); additionally you can now search through debug output by pressing Ctrl+F while the output pad is focused.

If you test a method like the following:         static void TestWithUnusedVariables()         {             var x = new Demo()             {                 SomeProperty = "Hello World"             }; ... [More]             var y = new List<Demo>             {                 new Demo() {                     SomeProperty = "nada"                     },                 new Demo()                     {                         SomeProperty = "nix"                     }             };         } And decompile with ILSpy you might be thinking that object / collection intializers are not being detected: private static void TestWithUnusedVariables() {     Demo demo = new Demo();     demo.SomeProperty = "Hello World";     List<Demo> list = new List<Demo>();     list.Add(new Demo     {         SomeProperty = "nada"     });     list.Add(new Demo     {         SomeProperty = "nix"     }); } Well, you are right. The reason being that the compilers sees that my user variables are not being used, thus optimizing the code by only keeping the compiler-generated ones, thus making it impossible for us to correctly detect the initializer. However, if you use the variables         static void TestWithUsedVariables()         {             var x = new Demo()             {                 SomeProperty = "Hello World"             };             var y = new List<Demo>             {                 new Demo() {                     SomeProperty = "nada"                     },                 new Demo()                     {                         SomeProperty = "nix"                     }             };             x.SomeProperty = "noch was";             var z = y.Count();         } ILSpy will correctly come up with proper decompiled code: private static void TestWithUsedVariables() {     Demo x = new Demo     {         SomeProperty = "Hello World"     };     List<Demo> y = new List<Demo>     {         new Demo         {             SomeProperty = "nada"         },          new Demo         {             SomeProperty = "nix"         }     };     x.SomeProperty = "noch was";     int z = y.Count<Demo>(); } In the sense of a "variable being used" the decompilation also works for variables only used to pass back a value:         static Demo TestWithReturnValue()         {             return new Demo()                 {                     SomeProperty = "Hello World"                 };         } ILSpy output: private static Demo TestWithReturnValue() {     return new Demo     {         SomeProperty = "Hello World"     }; } Bottom line: object and collection initializers are being properly decompiled if we can ascertain that it actually is one. [Less]

In recent builds of SharpDevelop 4.2 and AvalonEdit I implemented the "Virtual Space" feature. This feature allows you to place the caret after the end of the line. It was necessary to properly implement rectangle selection. You can enable it in the ... [More] TextEditor by setting EnableVirtualSpace = true or in the SharpDevelop options. When a rectangle selection is active virtual space is enabled implicitly. For a detailed overview/explanation see the following: I hope you find this useful. If you find any bugs or have a suggestion, please leave a comment! [Less]

Here is a preview of a new feature that is planned for SharpDevelop - integrated support for Machine.Specifications. Machine.Specifications, or MSpec for short, is a Behaviour Driven Development framework for .NET created by ... [More] Aaron Jensen which takes its inspiration from SpecUnit.NET and RSpec. Support for MSpec has been added thanks to Tomasz Tretkowski. So let us take a look at how the MSpec integration works in SharpDevelop. MSpec Integration The first thing you will need to do is add a reference to MSpec in the project that will contain your specifications. The easiest way to do this is to use NuGet. Select your project, right click and select Manage Packages. Search for the Machine.Specifications package and then click the Add button to add the NuGet package to your project. This will add a Machine.Specifications assembly reference to your project. Now let us create our first specification. We are going to create a specification which is based on an example provided with the MSpec source code. The specification is for transferring an amount of money between two bank accounts and is shown below. using System; using Machine.Specifications; namespace Banking.Tests { [Subject(typeof(Account), "Funds transfer")] public class when_transferring_between_two_accounts { static Account fromAccount; static Account toAccount; Establish context = () => { fromAccount = new Account { Balance = 1m }; toAccount = new Account { Balance = 1m }; }; Because of = () => fromAccount.Transfer(1m, toAccount); It should_debit_the_from_account_by_the_amount_transferred = () => fromAccount.Balance.ShouldEqual(0m); It should_credit_the_to_account_by_the_amount_transferred = () => toAccount.Balance.ShouldEqual(2m); } } MSpec uses Establish/Because/It which is equivalent to Given/When/Then that is used with SpecFlow. Establish is used to setup the initial state. Because is used to define the event/action that you are testing. It is used to test the final state and see if it matches what is expected. The Account class that is used by this specification is shown below. using System; namespace Banking { public class Account { public decimal Balance { get; set; } public void Transfer(decimal amount, Account toAccount) { } } } Specifications are displayed in the Unit Tests window. This window can be opened by selecting Unit Tests from the View | Tools menu. The specification we have defined will be displayed in the Unit Test window as shown below. The Unit Tests window will update as the specification is written in the same way it does when you are writing NUnit tests. To run MSpec you can right click a specification and select Run tests or you can click the toolbar buttons at the top of the Unit Tests window. Failures will be highlighted in Red in the Unit Tests window. The output from MSpec is displayed in the Output window. Failures are also added to the Errors window. Clicking on an error will take you directly to the source code for the failing test. Now we have to fix the failures by implementing the Account's Transfer method. The updated Transfer method is shown below: public void Transfer(decimal amount, Account toAccount) { Balance -= amount; toAccount.Balance += amount; } After making this change and running MSpec again everything passes, as shown below. That completes the quick introduction to using MSpec with SharpDevelop. Now let us take a look at MSpec Behaviours. MSpec Behaviours MSpec Behaviours are a way to group together a set of tests that you want to re-use with different contexts. To do this you create a separate class, add a Behaviors attribute to it, and move your tests into that class. This behaviour class is then referenced by using the Behaves_like syntax. An example taken from the MSpec examples is shown below. using System; using Machine.Specifications; namespace Banking.Tests { [Subject("Date time parsing")] public class when_a_date_is_parsed_with_the_regular_expression_parser : DateTimeParsingSpecs { Establish context = () => Parser = new RegexParser(); Because of = () => ParsedDate = Parser.Parse("2009/01/21"); Behaves_like<DateTimeParsingBehavior> a_date_time_parser; } [Subject("Date time parsing")] public class when_a_date_is_parsed_by_the_infrastructure : DateTimeParsingSpecs { Establish context = () => Parser = new InfrastructureParser(); Because of = () => ParsedDate = Parser.Parse("2009/01/21"); Behaves_like<DateTimeParsingBehavior> a_date_time_parser; } public abstract class DateTimeParsingSpecs { protected static DateTime ParsedDate; protected static IParser Parser; } [Behaviors] public class DateTimeParsingBehavior { protected static DateTime ParsedDate; It should_parse_the_expected_date = () => ParsedDate.ShouldEqual(new DateTime(2009, 1, 21)); } } Here the behaviour of the parser returning a particular date has been extracted and re-used across two different contexts. SharpDevelop is aware of MSpec behaviours and will display the underlying tests. The date time parser specifications above will be displayed in the Unit Tests window as shown below. For further details on MSpec behaviours take a look at the Behaviours in MSpec post by James Gregory. Further MSpec Information Here is a selection of links to further information on MSpec that you may find useful. MSpec on Github Introducing MSpec - Aaron Jensen's post that first introduced MSpec. Getting Started with MSpec Learning BDD - If you prefer to learn by watching a video check out Rob Conery's BDD screencast where he discusses BDD and also covers MSpec. Make BDD your BFF - Rob Conery walks through BDD with MSpec. Teaching a String Calculator How to Behave Behaviours in MSpec       [Less]

The Search and Replace engine used in SharpDevelop had a bad architecture. The concept of IDocumentIterator (for a number of documents) and ITextIterator (for a single document) leads to problems when doing manual "Find next" over multiple documents. ... [More] It leads code duplication and there are lots of hacks to circumvent all sorts of bugs. In the most recent alpha builds of SharpDevelop 4.2 the core parts of the Search and Replace engine were rewritten. While rewriting the code I wanted to get rid of code duplication, bugs, special cases and improve performance of the search engine. In a first step I removed all the existing engine code. Choosing a search algorithm There are lots of debates on .NET string search algorithm on the net. Some propose to use IndexOf, because it seems faster than Regex, others suggest to implement your own FastIndexOf. I choose to implement search using the Regex classes in the BCL for several reasons: It is easier to maintain because it is less code. Additionally the Regex classes are well tested in contrast to a custom IndexOf. There are multiple search modes: Normal, Wildcards and Regex. For regex, of course, we had to use the Regex classes. Wildcards are easier to translate to regex and plain text search is fast enough (if not faster in some cases), when using compiled regex. Features like "Ignore case" and "Match whole words" are implemented with Regex easily. "Match whole words" is simply \bsearchTerm\b. Using regex has helped to get rid of code duplication, bugs and special cases. I hope you agree with me and see the benefits of simplicity in contrast to micro and rare-case optimization. SearchPanel: Single file search - Integrated into the AvalonEdit text editor In AvalonEdit 4.2 Ctrl+F functionality has been directly built into the editor. The normal Search and Replace dialog has been moved to Ctrl+Shift+F. Incremental and Quick find were removed, because the SearchPanel is a very powerful replacement. As you can see it offers some basic search options. You can use F3 to jump to the next match and Shift+F3 to move to the previous match.The SearchPanel will soon be integrated into ILSpy to allow full-text search in currently decompiled code. Improving performance and usability of Find all in multiple files One of the weaknesses of Find all in SharpDevelop was its speed on the one hand and on the other hand, it was locking up SharpDevelop so the user had to wait for Find all to complete. During the redesign of the search engine, we also focused on making it thread-safe. This requires to create a list of files to search through before doing the actual search. This causes some neglectable delay and overhead. The only case in which this would turn out really bad, is a recursive directory search starting from C:\ using *.* as file mask. But this is certainly not a common scenario when working with an IDE. The good news is, you can continue working while waiting for the search to complete. Please keep in mind that all changes you make to documents while Find all is active are not guaranteed to be recognized, depending on when the background thread processes the file. Another good news for all those of you with multi-core CPUs: SharpDevelop 4.2 will process multiple files in parallel and display all results in real-time. So you can work with the first results while the remaining files are processed. This is implemented using the IObservable<T> and IObserver<T> interfaces. These are the key features of the new search engine. I hope you like it. If you have any suggestions, please leave a comment. [Less]