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Development Guide

This document details more advanced options for developing in this codebase. It is not quite necessary to follow it, but it is likely that you'll find something you'll need from here.

Documentation

The compiler is documented in docs. This is essential reading.

Recommended workflow

We recommend the following overall workflow when developing for this repository:

  • Fork this repository
  • Always work in your fork
  • Always keep your fork up to date

Before updating your fork, run this command:

git remote add upstream https://github.com/dotnet/fsharp.git

This will make management of multiple forks and your own work easier over time.

Updating your fork

We recommend the following commands to update your fork:

git checkout main
git clean -xdf
git fetch upstream
git rebase upstream/main
git push

Or more succinctly:

git checkout main && git clean -xdf && git fetch upstream && git rebase upstream/main && git push

This will update your fork with the latest from dotnet/fsharp on your machine and push those updates to your remote fork.

Developing on Windows

Install the latest released Visual Studio preview, as that is what the main branch's tools are synced with. Select the following workloads:

  • .NET desktop development (also check F# desktop support, as this will install some legacy templates)
  • Visual Studio extension development

You will also need .NET SDK installed from here, exact version can be found in the global.json file in the root of the repository.

Building is simple:

build.cmd

Desktop tests can be run with:

build.cmd -test -c Release

After you build the first time you can open and use this solution in Visual Studio:

.\VisualFSharp.sln

If you don't have everything installed yet, you'll get prompted by Visual Studio to install a few more things. This is because we use a .vsconfig file that specifies all our dependencies.

If you are just developing the core compiler and library then building FSharp.sln will be enough.

We recommend installing the latest Visual Studio preview and using that if you are on Windows. However, if you prefer not to do that, you will need to install the following:

You'll need to pass an additional flag to the build script:

build.cmd -noVisualStudio

You can open FSharp.sln in your editor of choice.

Developing on Linux or macOS

For Linux/Mac:

./build.sh

Running tests:

./build.sh --test

You can then open FSharp.sln in your editor of choice.

Testing from the command line

You can find all test options as separate flags. For example build -testAll:

  -testAll                  Run all tests
  -testAllButIntegration    Run all but integration tests
  -testCambridge            Run Cambridge tests
  -testCompiler             Run FSharpCompiler unit tests
  -testCompilerService      Run FSharpCompilerService unit tests
  -testDesktop              Run tests against full .NET Framework
  -testCoreClr              Run tests against CoreCLR
  -testFSharpCore           Run FSharpCore unit tests
  -testFSharpQA             Run F# Cambridge tests
  -testScripting            Run Scripting tests
  -testVs                   Run F# editor unit tests

Running any of the above will build the latest changes and run tests against them.

Using your custom compiler to build this repository

By removing all the subfolders called Bootstrap or Proto under artifacts and running the build script again, the proto compiler will include your changes.

Once the "proto" compiler is built, it won't be built again, so you may want to perform those steps again to ensure your changes don't break building the compiler itself.

Using your custom compiler to build other projects

Building the compiler using build.cmd or build.sh will output artifacts in artifacts\bin.

To use your custom build of Fsc, add the DotnetFscCompilerPath property to your project's .fsproj file, adjusted to point at your local build directory, build configuration, and target framework as appropriate:

<PropertyGroup>
    <DotnetFscCompilerPath>D:\Git\fsharp\artifacts\bin\fsc\Debug\net8.0\fsc.dll</DotnetFscCompilerPath>
</PropertyGroup>

Changes in FSharp.Core

The FSharp compiler uses an implicit FSharp.Core. This means that if you introduce changes to FSharp.Core and want to use it in a project, you need to disable the implicit version used by the compiler, and add a reference to your custom FSharp.Core dll. Both are done in the .fsproj file of your project.

Disabling the implicit FSharp.Core is done with

  <PropertyGroup>
    <DisableImplicitFSharpCoreReference>true</DisableImplicitFSharpCoreReference>
  </PropertyGroup>

and referencing your custom FSharp.Core, available after you build the compiler, is done with

  <ItemGroup>
    <Reference Include="FSharp.Core">
      <HintPath>D:\Git\fsharp\artifacts\bin\FSharp.Core\Debug\netstandard2.1\FSharp.Core.dll<\HintPath>
    </Reference>
  </ItemGroup>

Updating FSComp.fs, FSComp.resx and XLF

If your changes involve modifying the list of language keywords in any way, (e.g. when implementing a new keyword), the XLF localization files need to be synced with the corresponding resx files. This can be done automatically by running

dotnet build src\Compiler /t:UpdateXlf

If you are on a Mac, you can run this command from the root of the repository:

sh build.sh -c Release

Or if you are on Linux:

./build.sh -c Release

Updating baselines in tests

Some tests use "baseline" (.bsl) files. There is sometimes a way to update these baselines en-masse in your local build, useful when some change affects many baselines. For example, in the fsharpqa and FSharp.Compiler.ComponentTests tests the baselines are updated using scripts or utilities that allow the following environment variable to be set:

Windows:

CMD:

set TEST_UPDATE_BSL=1

PowerShell:

$env:TEST_UPDATE_BSL=1

Linux/macOS:

export TEST_UPDATE_BSL=1

Next, run a build script build (debug or release, desktop or coreclr, depending which baselines you need to update), and test as described above. For example:

./Build.cmd -c Release -testCoreClr to update Release CoreCLR baselines.

or

./Build.cmd -c Release -testDesktop to update Release .NET Framework baselines.

Note Please note, that by default, Release version of IL baseline tests will be running in CI, so when updating baseline (.bsl) files, make sure to add -c Release flag to the build command.

Automated Source Code Formatting

Some of the code in this repository is formatted automatically by Fantomas. To format all files use:

dotnet fantomas .

The formatting is checked automatically by CI:

dotnet fantomas . --check

At the time of writing only a subset of signature files (*.fsi) are formatted. See the settings in .fantomasignore and .editorconfig.

Developing the F# tools for Visual Studio

As you would expect, doing this requires both Windows and Visual Studio are installed.

See Developing on Windows for instructions to install what is needed; it's the same prerequisites.

Quickly see your changes locally

First, ensure that VisualFSharpDebug is the startup project.

Then, use the f5 or ctrl+f5 keyboard shortcuts to test your tooling changes. The former will debug a new instance of Visual Studio. The latter will launch a new instance of Visual Studio, but with your changes installed.

Alternatively, you can do this entirely via the command line if you prefer that:

devenv.exe /rootsuffix RoslynDev

Deploy your changes into a current Visual Studio installation

If you'd like to "run with your changes", you can produce a VSIX and install it into your current Visual Studio instance.

For this, run the following using the VS Developer PowerShell from the repo root:

VSIXInstaller.exe /u:"VisualFSharp"
VSIXInstaller.exe artifacts\VSSetup\Release\VisualFSharpDebug.vsix

It's important to use Release if you want to see if your changes have had a noticeable performance impact.

Troubleshooting a failed build of the tools

You may run into an issue with a somewhat difficult or cryptic error message, like:

error VSSDK1077: Unable to locate the extensions directory. "ExternalSettingsManager::GetScopePaths failed to initialize PkgDefManager for C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe".

Or hard crash on launch ("Unknown Error").

To fix this, delete these folders:

  • %localappdata%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\<version>_(some number here)RoslynDev
  • %localappdata%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\<version>_(some number here)

Where <version> corresponds to the latest Visual Studio version on your machine.

Coding conventions

  • Coding conventions vary from file to file

  • Format using the F# style guide

  • Avoid tick identifiers like body'. They are generally harder to read and can't be inspected in the debugger as things stand. Generally use R suffix instead, e.g. bodyR. The R can stand for "rewritten" or "result"

  • Avoid abbreviations like bodyty that are all lowercase. They are really hard to read for newcomers. Use bodyTy instead.

  • See the compiler docs for common abbreviations

  • Don't use List.iter and Array.iter in the compiler, a for ... do ... loop is simpler to read and debug

Performance and debugging

Use the Debug configuration to test your changes locally. It is the default. Do not use the Release configuration! Local development and testing of Visual Studio tooling is not designed for the Release configuration.

Benchmarking

Existing compiler benchmarks can be found in tests\benchmarks\. The folder contains READMEs describing specific benchmark projects as well as guidelines for creating new benchmarks. There is also FSharp.Benchmarks.sln solution containing all the benchmark project and their dependencies.

To exercise the benchmarking infrastructure locally, run:

(Windows)

build.cmd -configuration Release -testBenchmarks

(Linux/Mac)

./build.sh --configuration Release --testBenchmarks

This is executed in CI as well. It does the following:

  • builds all the benchmarking projects
  • does smoke testing for fast benchmarks (executes them once to check they don't fail in the runtime)

Benchmarking and profiling the compiler

NOTE: When running benchmarks or profiling compiler, and comparing results with upstream version, make sure:

  • Always build both versions of compiler/FCS from source and not use pre-built binaries from SDK (SDK binaries are crossgen'd, which can affect performance).
  • To run Release build of compiler/FCS.

Additional resources

The primary technical guide to the core compiler code is The F# Compiler Technical Guide. Please read and contribute to that guide.

See the "Debugging The Compiler" section of this article for some examples.

Addendum: configuring a proxy server

If you are behind a proxy server, NuGet client tool must be configured to use it:

See the Nuget config file documention for use with a proxy server https://learn.microsoft.com/nuget/reference/nuget-config-file