F# compilation without msbuild

Question

how do I simulate, from the command line, compiling an F# file with fsc.exe:

• without resorting to msbuild explicitly
• setting the framework version to another one of my choosing (for example .Net 3.5)

?

So far it seems that I need to make a project at all costs, but that is simply not an option in my scenario.

Answer 1

Assuming by simulate you mean, how do I build F# files with fsc.exe, you can just pass through files in the order that they are referenced to fsc.exe.

If you had the following files

Message.fs

module Message

let customMessage = "Hello, from message"

and Hello.fs

module Hello

open System
open Message

let main args =
  printfn "%s" customMessage
  0

You compile those with (something like):

'C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft SDKs\\F#\\3.1\\Framework\\v4.0\\Fsc.exe' C:\\dev\\Message.fs C:\\dev\\Hello.fs

Edit

In order to compile this referencing a specific version, you need to update your references as per @nicolas response.

You need to specify --noframework and provide FSharp.Core and mscorlib.

I was able to do this using the FSharp reference assemblies. For whatever reason, I needed to be in that directory (eg C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Reference Assemblies\\Microsoft\\FSharp )

I could then run this:

'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\F#\3.1\Framework\v4.0\Fsc.exe' --out:c:\dev\Hello.exe --noframework -r:C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\mscorlib.dll -r:"2.0\Runtime\v2.0\FSharp.Core.dll" C:\dev\Message.fs C:\dev\Hello.fs