About csexec

csexec is command-line tool to run C# source files as scripts in Linux environments using Mono framework. It is evolved from the original idea described here on StackOverflow.

Features

Major csexec features comparing to the Mono C# REPL (csharp):

• Full C# language features at your fingers!
• Ability to run script in a terminal emulator.
• Ability to pass command-line arguments to the script (csharp also supports this since Mono 5.0.0).
• Script source file name is available as a first argument.

License

The csexec is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

Install & prepare scripts

1. Make csexec executable and copy it to the /usr/bin:

chmod +x csexec
sudo cp -f csexec /usr/bin

2. Add #!/usr/bin/csexec line at the beginning of C# source file.
3. Make C# source file executable.
4. Optionally, change C# source file extension to something like .csx.

Note what csexec writes compiler messages to csexec.log file in its current working directory, which may be not the same as a script source directory!

Basic console script

#!/usr/bin/csexec

using System;

public class Program
{
    public static void Main (string [] args)
    {
        Console.WriteLine ("Hello, world!");
        Console.WriteLine ("Arguments: " + string.Join (", ", args));
    }
}

Run in the terminal emulator

Use -t switch to run script in terminal emulator window. Consider add Console.ReadKey () to the end of the program to pause script before it quits.

#!/usr/bin/csexec -t

using System;

public class Program
{
    public static void Main (string [] args)
    {
        Console.WriteLine ("Hello, world!");
        Console.WriteLine ("Arguments: " + string.Join (", ", args));

        Console.Write ("Press any key to quit...");
        Console.ReadKey (true);
    }
}

Reference GAC assemblies

Use -r: compiler option to reference GAC assemblies:

#!/usr/bin/csexec -r:System.Windows.Forms.dll -r:System.Drawing.dll

using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Windows.Forms;

public class Program
{
    public static void Main (string [] args)
    {
        MessageBox.Show ("Hello, world!");
    }
}

Reference file assemblies

csexec allow reference file assemblies from the ~/.config/csharp directory (same as with Mono C# shell). Note that you still need to reference them with -r: compiler option to be able to use their features in the code.

#!/usr/bin/csexec -r:MyLibrary.dll

using System;
using MyLibrary;

public class Program
{
    public static void Main (string [] args)
    {
        var myObject = new MyClass ();
        Console.WriteLine (myObject);
    }
}

Template scripts

See template scripts in the templates directory.

R7.Scripting

csexec works better along with R7.Scripting library, which provides various components to simpify C# scripting and easily integrate your scripts with Nautilus / Nemo / Caja file managers.