M# (pronounced ''em sharp'') is a code generation tool and a

domain-specific language A domain-specific language (DSL) is a computer language specialized to a particular application domain. This is in contrast to a general-purpose language (GPL), which is broadly applicable across domains. There are a wide variety of DSLs, ranging f ...

that can be used to create websites and web applications. It can translate

entities An entity is something that exists as itself, as a subject or as an object, actually or potentially, concretely or abstractly, physically or not. It need not be of material existence. In particular, abstractions and legal fictions are usually ...

and page definitions to

ASP.NET ASP.NET is an open-source, server-side web-application framework designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. It was developed by Microsoft to allow programmers to build dynamic web sites, applications and services. The name stan ...

Web Forms and MVC and C# code which in turn form the

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

and

business logic layer In computer software, business logic or domain logic is the part of the program that encodes the real-world business rules that determine how data can be created, stored, and changed. It is contrasted with the remainder of the software that might ...

of the application. Its main goals are to reduce time of development, increase code quality, and reduce human errors.

Name

M# generates codes that is mainly in the C# programming language. Because the "sharp" suffix has been used by a number of other .NET languages, M# followed the same convention.

Syntax

M# uses its own IDE, which is a web-based application for creating ASP.Net WebForms and Visual Studio for Creating ASP.Net MVC projects. Inside the IDE, a user can type, select from suggestions (

Intelli-sense Autocomplete, or word completion, is a feature in which an application predicts the rest of a word a user is typing. In Android and iOS smartphones, this is called predictive text. In graphical user interfaces, users can typically press the tab ke ...

), or use the mouse to define the entities or user interface modules. An example would be a form module that has two buttons (Cancel and Save) and displays a Key and a Text field. The Key field is read-only and the Save button adds a content block to the database: Content-block-msharp

And the same form in the Visual Studio would be like the following.
ContentBlockFormExample

Internally, M# IDE keeps this module definition as a

JSON JSON (JavaScript Object Notation, pronounced ; also ) is an open standard file format and data interchange format that uses human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and arrays (or other ser ...

file. At the time of a build, it will generate C#, ascx, and ascx.cs files. From that moment, XML or M# is not necessary to render the module or to be installed on the machines that will serve the page. New versions of M# are integrated with Microsoft Visual Studio.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.msharp.co.uk/Home.html High-level programming languages XML-based programming languages Domain-specific programming languages Programming languages created in 2012