X#, pronounced X sharp and often written XSharp, is an
xBase
xBase is the generic term for all programming languages that derive from the original dBASE ( Ashton-Tate) programming language and database formats. These are sometimes informally known as dBASE "clones". While there was a non-commercial predec ...
-compatible
programming language
A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language.
The description of a programming ...
for the
Microsoft .NET
The Microsoft .NET strategy is a marketing plan that Microsoft followed in the early 2000s. Steve Ballmer described it as the company's "most ambitious undertaking since Internet Strategy Day in 1995". In support of this strategy, between 2000 and ...
platform. X# has been built on top of
Roslyn, the open source architecture behind the current
Microsoft C# and
Visual Basic .NET
Visual Basic, originally called Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET), is a multi-paradigm, object-oriented programming language, implemented on .NET, Mono, and the .NET Framework. Microsoft launched VB.NET in 2002 as the successor to its original Visua ...
compilers.
The X# compiler is intended to support multiple dialects in the xBase programming language family. It supports Core, Visual Objects, Vulcan.NET, xBase++, Harbour, Foxpro and more. The project is intended as an opensource community effort, but is at the moment still partly closed source.
History
In 2015, the majority of the developers of the
Vulcan.NET team started the XSharp compiler development due to conflicts with their previous employer
GrafXSoft about future developments.
As a proof of concept and viability, the Vulcan IDE was recompiled and rebuilt in XSharp into XIDE.
On July 3, 2017, the first general release (version 1.0.1, Anjou) was published.
Version 2.5.1.0 was released on July 6th 2020.
The X# development team consists of former members of the Visual Objects and Vulcan.NET development teams.
Supported dialects
At the moment the following dialects are supported:
* XSharp Core language: This language lacks a native dialect runtime, which means that there are no USUAL, ARRAY and other xBase familiar datatypes. Only the native available datatypes of .NET are available.
* Vulcan.NET: The official runtime of Vulcan.NET can be used or the by XSharp provided alternative runtime.
* Visual Objects (VO)
* xHarbour
* FoxPro/Visual FoxPro
In the future, the team intends to also support the following dialects:
* XBase++
Technology
The XSharp compiler is based upon the Roslyn compiler and can make full use of the available .NET framework classes.
It integrates with all known editions of Visual Studio 2019, 2017 and 2015.
See also
*
Clipper (programming language)
Clipper is an xBase compiler that implements a variant of the ''xBase'' computer programming language. It is used to create
or extend software programs that originally operated primarily under MS-DOS. Although it is a powerful general-purpose pro ...
*
Harbour (software)
Harbour is a computer programming language, primarily used to create database/business programs. It is a modernized, open sourced and cross-platform version of the older Clipper system, which in turn developed from the dBase database market ...
*
Visual FoxPro
Visual FoxPro is a Microsoft data-centric procedural programming language with object-oriented programming (OOP) features.
It was derived from FoxPro (originally known as FoxBASE) which was developed by Fox Software beginning in 1984. Fox Techn ...
External links
XSharp Home web siteXSharp extension for Visual Studio (Microsoft Visual Studio MarketplaceOpen Source X Sharp repo source code on GitHub
Vulcan.NET Xbase language for Microsoft .NET
{{Common Language Infrastructure
.NET programming languages
XBase programming language family
Query languages