PlayScript is an open source Adobe ActionScript compatible compiler and Flash compatible runtime that runs in the Mono .NET environment, targeting mobile devices through the Xamarin platform. With a combination of Adobe FlashBuilder for Web and Xamarin Studio for mobile complex large scale cross-mobile-web projects can be developed with full IDE, source debugging and intellisense support on all platforms, with access to the full native mobile API's on the mobile platform.
The PlayScript compiler also targets both C++ and JavaScript (similar to the Haxe compiler) allowing ActionScript code to be run via JavaScript on the Web, or natively on PC and mobile (with some limitations). (NOTE: Presently the JS and C++ targets are at an experimental stage)
In addition to accurate ActionScript language support, the PlayScript compiler also supports a new language - PlayScript - which is derived from both C# and ActionScript. This new language supports all of the features of C#, including generics, properties, events, value types, operator overloading, async programming, linq, while at the same time being upwards compatible with ActionScript. The PlayScript language can be used to target both web and mobile (via Xamarin and JavaScript), and existing Flash code can easily be converted to PlayScript code by simply renaming files from .as to .play, and fixing a few issues related to the stricter syntax and semantics of the PlayScript language.
Finally, the PlayScript runtime supports a full Stage3D compatible implementation of the Flash runtime allowing games that are Stage3D compliant to run with very minor modifications on mobile via the Xamarin/Mono runtime. A subset of the "display" library is implemented to support Stage3D libraries such as Starling, Away3D, and Feathers, though there are no plans at the present time to implement the full Flash display system.
The PlayScript compiler and runtime provides a complete toolset for building and running ActionScript based games on mobile via the Xamarin Mono runtime, on the web via Adobe Flash or JavaScript/HTML5.
The PlayScript compiler is implemented as an additional front end to the Mono MCS compiler. Installing the PlayScript version of the Mono framework allows you to compile, with the MCS compiler all three langauges: C#, ActionScript, and PlayScript simply by adding files with .cs, .as, and .play file extensions to the MCS command line.
Likewise with the Xamarin Studio IDE, pointing the Xamarin Studio ".NET Frameworks" preferences page selection to the PlayScript Mono framework allows you to simply add .as or .play files to any C# project, and compile them directly into your Xamarin.iOS or Xamarin.Android project. You can then compile ActionScript or PlayScript code and debug it on the device just as you would any C# code. ActionScript code can directly call C# code, and vice versa.
PlayScript includes two libraries: PlayScript.Dynamic_aot.dll, and pscorlib.dll, which implement the basic flash runtime and Stage3D over OpenGL. Referencing these libraries (or the Monotouch or Mono for Android versions of them) in your project in Xamarin Studio allows you to run existing Flash Stage3D code with no modifications. (NOTE: A stubbed version of the flash "display" library is included, but is non functional except for various functionality in Bitmap, BitmapData, and TextField).
The PlayScript and ActionScript compiler front ends are fairly stable at this point (given that they are built on top of the very mature Mono compiler and runtime), but there are still several ActionScript language features that are not fully implemented, and certain constructs that are not parsed or compiled as they are in ActionScript. Work is ongoing to eliminate these last remaining issues and deliver full ActionScript compatibility.
- Dynamic classes are compiled but are not implemented yet.
- The [Embed] tag is not yet implemented.
- The singleton guard pattern is not supported (using a private parameter to a public constructor).
- Static and non static members of the same name are not supported.
- Class and package level statements are not supported.
- Variety of small bugs which require minor work arounds (these are being eliminated over time).
- Unsafe code is not supported (conflict with the use of the * symbol in ActionScript).
- Some issues with multi dimensional arrays.
- JavaScript and C++ targets are experimental.
- Much work has been done on the Stage3D library support, and full AGAL to HLSL support has been implemented.
- Starling and Away3D libraries are functional and most features are supported.
- Very little work has been done on net, and other core libraries.
Presently we are iterating very rapidly on the runtime and compiler, and binary releases are out of date almost immediately after they are posted.
We currently recommend that if you wish to use the current alpha versions of the compiler and runtime, you be prepared to build from source and to regularly pull updates from git and rebuild.
PlayScript is simply part of the regular Mono build and the MCS compiler build by Mono will compile ActionScript and PlayScript .as and .play files.
See the MONO build instructions below.
Mac:
http://www.mono-project.com/Compiling_Mono_on_OSX
Windows:
http://www.mono-project.com/Compiling_Mono_on_Windows
Also, the base pscorlib.dll and PlayScript.Dynamic.dll runtime libraries (minus Stage3D support) will be pre-built and added to the GAC gache in the final mono install. To use the "monotouch" or "monomac" or "monoandroid" versions of these libraries, use the included .csproj files in the mcs/class folder in this repository.
- Build the Mono framework from this repo using the Mono build instructions. Use --prefix=/Users/myname/playscript-mono-inst to install the framework to a reasonable location on your hard disk.
- Open Xamarin Studio, and select Preferences..
- Select the .NET runtimes tab.
- Click the "Add" button, and select the folder where you build the PlayScript mono framework from step 1.
- Click the "Set as Default" button.
- Exit Xamarin Studio, then restart.
You should now be able to add .as files and .play files to your projects and compile them. Note that you must make sure the file is toggled to compile by selecting the "Properties" panel in Xamarin Studio and setting the "Build Action" to compile.
(NOTE: A modified version of MonoDevelop should be available in the playscript-monodevelop repository that includes full support - including syntax highlighting for both .as and .play files.)
- Using "unsafe" code.
- Direct interop with native code (Cocos2D-X, other C++ based engines such as Page44, etc).
- Optimized compiler for JavaScript generation.
- Optional full C++ target with minimal app size and startup overhead.
- Complete tool support including Syntax Highlighting and Intellisense in the MonoDevelop IDE.
- Source Debugging on all platforms (FlashBuilder for Flash).
- Fast Release mode compiles and rapid iteration.
- Complete iOS platform API via Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android
- Complete Windows/MacOSX API's.
- Complete integration with UI builder (iOS), and Android GUI builder via Xamarin Studio.
- PlayScript supports most features of C# 5.
- PlayScript requires semicolons after all statements.
- PlayScript uses block scoping for variables.
- PlayScript requires breaks in switch statements.
- PlayScript supports generics using the .<> syntax introduced in AS3 with the normal C# feature set.
- PlayScript supports properties using the "property" keyword with syntax similar to C#.
- PlayScript supports indexers and operator overloads using the "indexer" and "operator" keywords.
- PlayScript implements AS3 namespaces by converting them to .NET internal.
- PlayScript requires the use of the "overload" keyword on addtional overload methods (allows more readable JavaScript code by only mangling overload method names).
- PlayScript does not support using blocks.
- PlayScript does not support checked, unchecked.
- PlayScript does not "presently" support unsafe code (though this will be added in the future). Currently unsafe code can be added to mobile projects via C#.
- In PlayScript you may not directly access the base properties of Object (ToString(), GetType(), GetHashCode()) unless you cast an object to a System.Object. Doing this however will make your code incompatible with the C++ or JavaScript target backends.
Code contributed to this project by Zynga is released under the Apache open source license.
// Basic types
var b:byte;
var sb:sbyte;
var s:short;
var us:ushort;
var i:int;
var u:uint;
var l:long;
var ul:ulong;
var f:float;
var d:double;
// Conditional compilation
#if DEBUG
#else
#endif
// Fixed arrays
var a:int[] = new int[100];
// Properties
public property MyProperty:int {
get { return _myInt; }
set { _myInt = value; }
}
// Events
public event MyEvent;
// Delegates
public delegate MyDelegate(i:int):void;
// Operators
public static operator - (i:int, j:int):int {
}
// Indexers
public indexer this (index:int) {
get { return _a[index]; }
set { _a[index] = value; }
}
// Generics
public class Foo.<T> {
public var _f:T;
public function foo<T>(v:T):void {
}
}
// Async
async function AccessTheWebAsync():Task.<int>
{
var client:HttpClient= new HttpClient();
var getStringTask:Task.<String> = client.GetStringAsync("http://msdn.microsoft.com");
var urlContents:String = await getStringTask;
return urlContents.Length;
}
Please join the discussion on Google Groups here:
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/playscript
This is Mono.
1. Installation
2. Using Mono
3. Directory Roadmap
4. git submodules maintenance
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Compilation and Installation ===============================
On Itanium, you must obtain libunwind:
http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/linux/libunwind/download.php4On Solaris, make sure that you used GNU tar to unpack this package, as Solaris tar will not unpack this correctly, and you will get strange errors.
On Solaris, make sure that you use the GNU toolchain to build the software.
Optional dependencies:
* libgdiplus If you want to get support for System.Drawing, you will need to get Libgdiplus. This library in turn requires glib and pkg-config: * pkg-config Available from: http://www.freedesktop.org/Software/pkgconfig * glib 2.4 Available from: http://www.gtk.org/ * libzlib This library and the development headers are required for compression file support in the 2.0 profile.If you obtained this package as an officially released tarball, this is very simple, use configure and make:
./configure --prefix=/usr/local make make installMono supports a JIT engine on x86, SPARC, SPARCv9, S/390, S/390x, AMD64, ARM and PowerPC systems.
If you obtained this as a snapshot, you will need an existing Mono installation. To upgrade your installation, unpack both mono and mcs:
tar xzf mcs-XXXX.tar.gz tar xzf mono-XXXX.tar.gz mv mono-XXX mono mv mcs-XXX mcs cd mono ./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr/local makeThe Mono build system is silent for most compilation commands. To enable a more verbose compile (for example, to pinpoint problems in your makefiles or your system) pass the V=1 flag to make, like this:
make V=1If you are building the software from GIT, make sure that you have up-to-date mcs and mono sources:
If you are an anonymous user: git clone git://github.com/mono/mono.git If you are a Mono contributor with read/write privileges: git clone [email protected]:mono/mono.gitThen, go into the mono directory, and configure:
cd mono ./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr/local makeFor people with non-standard installations of the auto* utils and of pkg-config (common on misconfigured OSX and windows boxes), you could get an error like this:
./configure: line 19176: syntax error near unexpected token `PKG_CHECK_MODULES(BASE_DEPENDENCIES,' ...
This means that you need to set the ACLOCAL_FLAGS environment var when invoking autogen.sh, like this:
ACLOCAL_FLAGS="-I $acprefix/share/aclocal" ./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr/locawhere $acprefix is the prefix where aclocal has been installed.
This will automatically go into the mcs/ tree and build the binaries there.
This assumes that you have a working mono installation, and that there's a C# compiler named 'mcs', and a corresponding IL runtime called 'mono'. You can use two make variables EXTERNAL_MCS and EXTERNAL_RUNTIME to override these. e.g., you can say
make EXTERNAL_MCS=/foo/bar/mcs EXTERNAL_RUNTIME=/somewhere/else/mono
If you don't have a working Mono installation, an obvious choice is to install the latest released packages of 'mono' for your distribution and running autogen.sh; make; make install in the mono module directory.
You can also try a slightly more risky approach: this may not work, so start from the released tarball as detailed above.
This works by first getting the latest version of the 'monolite' distribution, which contains just enough to run the 'mcs' compiler. You do this with:
# Run the following line after ./autogen.sh make get-monolite-latestThis will download and automatically gunzip and untar the tarball, and place the files appropriately so that you can then just run:
make EXTERNAL_MCS=${PWD}/mcs/class/lib/monolite/gmcs.exeAnd that will use the files downloaded by 'make get-monolite-latest.
You can run (part of) the mono and mcs testsuites with the command:
make checkAll tests should pass.
If you want more extensive tests, including those that test the class libraries, you need to re-run 'configure' with the '--enable-nunit-tests' flag, and try
make -k checkExpect to find a few testsuite failures. As a sanity check, you can compare the failures you got with
https://wrench.mono-project.com/Wrench/You can now install mono with:
make installYou can verify your installation by using the mono-test-install script, it can diagnose some common problems with Mono's install.
Failure to follow these steps may result in a broken installation.
The following are the configuration options that someone building Mono might want to use:
--with-sgen=yes,no
Generational GC support: Used to enable or disable the compilation of a Mono runtime with the SGen garbage collector. On platforms that support it, after building Mono, you will have both a mono binary and a mono-sgen binary. Mono uses Boehm, while mono-sgen uses the Simple Generational GC.--with-gc=[boehm, included, sgen, none]
Selects the default Boehm garbage collector engine to use, the default is the "included" value. included: This is the default value, and it's the most feature complete, it will allow Mono to use typed allocations and support the debugger. It is essentially a slightly modified Boehm GC boehm: This is used to use a system-install Boehm GC, it is useful to test new features available in Boehm GC, but we do not recommend that people use this, as it disables a few features. none: Disables the inclusion of a garbage collector.--with-tls=__thread,pthread
Controls how Mono should access thread local storage, pthread forces Mono to use the pthread APIs, while __thread uses compiler-optimized access to it. Although __thread is faster, it requires support from the compiler, kernel and libc. Old Linux systems do not support with __thread. This value is typically pre-configured and there is no need to set it, unless you are trying to debug a problem.--with-sigaltstack=yes,no
Experimental: Use at your own risk, it is known to cause problems with garbage collection and is hard to reproduce those bugs. This controls whether Mono will install a special signal handler to handle stack overflows. If set to "yes", it will turn stack overflows into the StackOverflowException. Otherwise when a stack overflow happens, your program will receive a segmentation fault. The configure script will try to detect if your operating system supports this. Some older Linux systems do not support this feature, or you might want to override the auto-detection.--with-static_mono=yes,no
This controls whether `mono' should link against a static library (libmono.a) or a shared library (libmono.so). This defaults to yes, and will improve the performance of the `mono' program. This only affects the `mono' binary, the shared library libmono.so will always be produced for developers that want to embed the runtime in their application.--with-xen-opt=yes,no
The default value for this is `yes', and it makes Mono generate code which might be slightly slower on average systems, but the resulting executable will run faster under the Xen virtualization system.--with-large-heap=yes,no
Enable support for GC heaps larger than 3GB. This value is set to `no' by default.--enable-small-config=yes,no
Enable some tweaks to reduce memory usage and disk footprint at the expense of some capabilities. Typically this means that the number of threads that can be created is limited (256), that the maxmimum heap size is also reduced (256 MB) and other such limitations that still make mono useful, but more suitable to embedded devices (like mobile phones). This value is set to `no' by default.--with-ikvm-native=yes,no
Controls whether the IKVM JNI interface library is built or not. This is used if you are planning on using the IKVM Java Virtual machine with Mono. This defaults to `yes'.--with-profile4=yes,no
Whether you want to build the 4.x profile libraries and runtime. It defaults to `yes'.--with-moonlight=yes,no
Whether you want to generate the Silverlight/Moonlight libraries and toolchain in addition to the default (1.1 and 2.0 APIs). This will produce the `smcs' compiler which will reference the Silverlight modified assemblies (mscorlib.dll, System.dll, System.Code.dll and System.Xml.Core.dll) and turn on the LINQ extensions for the compiler.--with-moon-gc=boehm,sgen
Select the GC to use for Moonlight. boehm: Selects the Boehm Garbage Collector, with the same flags as the regular Mono build. This is the default. sgen: Selects the new SGen Garbage Collector, which provides Generational GC support, using the same flags as the mono-sgen build. This defaults to `boehm'.--with-libgdiplus=installed,sibling,
This is used to configure where Mono should look for libgdiplus when running the System.Drawing tests. It defaults to `installed', which means that the library is available to Mono through the regular system setup. `sibling' can be used to specify that a libgdiplus that resides as a sibling of this directory (mono) should be used. Or you can specify a path to a libgdiplus.--disable-shared-memory
Use this option to disable the use of shared memory in Mono (this is equivalent to setting the MONO_DISABLE_SHM environment variable, although this removes the feature completely). Disabling the shared memory support will disable certain features like cross-process named mutexes.--enable-minimal=LIST
Use this feature to specify optional runtime components that you might not want to include. This is only useful for developers embedding Mono that require a subset of Mono functionality. The list is a comma-separated list of components that should be removed, these are: aot: Disables support for the Ahead of Time compilation. attach: Support for the Mono.Management assembly and the VMAttach API (allowing code to be injected into a target VM) com: Disables COM support. debug: Drop debugging support. decimal: Disables support for System.Decimal. full_messages: By default Mono comes with a full table of messages for error codes. This feature turns off uncommon error messages and reduces the runtime size. generics: Generics support. Disabling this will not allow Mono to run any 2.0 libraries or code that contains generics. jit: Removes the JIT engine from the build, this reduces the executable size, and requires that all code executed by the virtual machine be compiled with Full AOT before execution. large_code: Disables support for large assemblies. logging: Disables support for debug logging. pinvoke: Support for Platform Invocation services, disabling this will drop support for any libraries using DllImport. portability: Removes support for MONO_IOMAP, the environment variables for simplifying porting applications that are case-insensitive and that mix the Unix and Windows path separators. profiler: Disables support for the default profiler. reflection_emit: Drop System.Reflection.Emit support reflection_emit_save: Drop support for saving dynamically created assemblies (AssemblyBuilderAccess.Save) in System.Reflection.Emit. shadow_copy: Disables support for AppDomain's shadow copies (you can disable this if you do not plan on using appdomains). simd: Disables support for the Mono.SIMD intrinsics library. ssa: Disables compilation for the SSA optimization framework, and the various SSA-based optimizations.--enable-llvm --enable-loadedllvm
This enables the use of LLVM as a code generation engine for Mono. The LLVM code generator and optimizer will be used instead of Mono's built-in code generator for both Just in Time and Ahead of Time compilations. See the http://www.mono-project.com/Mono_LLVM for the full details and up-to-date information on this feature. You will need to have an LLVM built that Mono can link against, The --enable-loadedllvm variant will make the llvm backend into a runtime-loadable module instead of linking it directly into the main mono binary.--enable-big-arrays
This enables the use of arrays whose indexes are larger than Int32.MaxValue. By default Mono has the same limitation as .NET on Win32 and Win64 and limits array indexes to 32-bit values (even on 64-bit systems). In certain scenarios where large arrays are required, you can pass this flag and Mono will be built to support 64-bit arrays. This is not the default as it breaks the C embedding ABI that we have exposed through the Mono development cycle.--enable-parallel-mark
Use this option to enable the garbage collector to use multiple CPUs to do its work. This helps performance on multi-CPU machines as the work is divided across CPUS. This option is not currently the default as we have not done much testing with Mono.--enable-dtrace
On Solaris and MacOS X builds a version of the Mono runtime that contains DTrace probes and can participate in the system profiling using DTrace.--disable-dev-random
Mono uses /dev/random to obtain good random data for any source that requires random numbers. If your system does not support this, you might want to disable it. There are a number of runtime options to control this also, see the man page.--enable-nacl
This configures the Mono compiler to generate code suitable to be used by Google's Native Client: http://code.google.com/p/nativeclient/ Currently this is used with Mono's AOT engine as Native Client does not support JIT engines yet. -
Using Mono =============
Once you have installed the software, you can run a few programs:
-
runtime engine
mono program.exe
-
C# compiler
mcs program.cs
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CIL Disassembler
monodis program.exe
See the man pages for mono(1), mint(1), monodis(1) and mcs(2) for further details.
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-
Directory Roadmap ====================
docs/ Technical documents about the Mono runtime.
data/ Configuration files installed as part of the Mono runtime.
mono/ The core of the Mono Runtime.
metadata/ The object system and metadata reader. mini/ The Just in Time Compiler. dis/ CIL executable Disassembler cli/ Common code for the JIT and the interpreter. io-layer/ The I/O layer and system abstraction for emulating the .NET IO model. cil/ Common Intermediate Representation, XML definition of the CIL bytecodes. interp/ Interpreter for CLI executables (obsolete). arch/ Architecture specific portions.man/
Manual pages for the various Mono commands and programs.samples/
Some simple sample programs on uses of the Mono runtime as an embedded library.scripts/
Scripts used to invoke Mono and the corresponding program.runtime/
A directory that contains the Makefiles that link the mono/ and mcs/ build systems.../olive/
If the directory ../olive is present (as an independent checkout) from the Mono module, that directory is automatically configured to share the same prefix than this module gets. -
Git submodules maintenance =============================
Read documentation at http://mono-project.com/Git_Submodule_Maintenance