C# Compiler Options :- Sections

Comment: This is a post i am porting from another blog! An old note.

What is csc.exe?

To me, at this point, it is a program, an application. I double-click the csc.exe and i see a console window open up, and close rapidly. By this, i know it's a console app. I go to the command prompt and execute the csc.exe app, by just typing its name, i get an error.

fatal error CS2008: No inputs specified. Thus the app. throws errors if i do something bad. Good.

I now know that it expects some kind of parameters.

To know what these parameters are, i try this
csc.exe /? at the command prompt. It offers me a huge list of information. The /? switch has been around for many years. It offers Help. If i dissect the output,

I have this information:

The C# Compiler Information

Microsoft (R) Visual C# 2008 Compiler version 3.5.30729.1
for Microsoft (R) .NET Framework version 3.5
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

This is basically the application information, saying that it is the C# compiler, telling me it's version number is 3.5.30729.1, that it is targeting the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 and that it is a copyrighted product of Microsoft. Awesome.

The Compiler Options

I also see various options that i can specify, divided into the following sections.

OUTPUT FILES
INPUT FILES
RESOURCES
CODE GENERATION
ERRORS AND WARNINGS
LANGUAGE
MISCELLANEOUS
ADVANCED

Cool. I am pretty sure we shall learn a lot from these options.