Generate a C# Project

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

Encore RPG for Visual Studio provides a simple IDE command for generating a standalone C# project equivalent to the current Encore project. Applications produced by C# projects generated by Encore RPG are 100% functionally equivalent to the applications produced by the original Encore RPG projects. The only difference is that Encore code is replaced with C# code managed by a C# project.

Note that C# project migration is a one-way operation. Thereafter, the Encore project and the derived C# project are independent, and only “in sync” until one or the other project is subsequently modified.

The Encore RPG project system provides a few options for creating C# projects, as discussed below.

Translate to C# Project

  1. Select the project to migrate in Solution Explorer, and Right-Click to show the context menu. Note the Translate to C# Project command as shown below. Invoke the command.

    Display the project context menu, and click the command.

  2. The command starts a project build specifying an option to create a C# project rather than an application. The output, which displays the location of the new project, is shown in the Output window, as shown below.

    Note that this command is implemented in Encore SDK via an MSBuild compiler option.

    Observe the command result in the Output window.

  3. Observe the produced project files in the directory mentioned in the command output.

    Windows Explorer view of the produced project directory.

  4. Open the project file (with the .csproj extension) in Visual Studio to use the new project. Use the Build Solution command on the Build menu (or default key shortcut Ctrl+Shift+B) to verify that the project builds the application successfully.

    Observing the migrated project build result.

Project Designer Options

Using the Encore project migrated in the prior section as an example, suppose some changes are made to the Encore code after the migration. Now we want to re-migrate the Encore project with those changes.

  1. As in the prior section, the Translate to C# Project command is invoked. In this case however, build output below shows a failure, due to the presence of files in the “default” project output location.

    Translate to C# command fails due to non-empty directory.

    The error can be remedied in several ways, including simply deleting the contents, or the target directory entirely from the file system then re-running the command.

  2. Instead of throwing away the prior migration, we can modify a project property to resolve this. On the Project menu, select Properties as shown below.

    Open the project designer.

  3. The .NET project “designer” appears. In the left margin, navigate to the Encore RPG section, and then to Translation to C#, as shown below. This presents two options, only one of which allows us to keep the prior migration:

    A. Change the Output folder for the translated project path, or

    B. Set the Overwrite output folder option.

    Options for handling translation output

  4. Since we want to save the prior migration, change the output folder name to $(MSBuildProjectDirectory)_CS_New in the text box marked ‘A’ above, and re-run the Translate to C# Project command. The output should now show a successful migration in the folder specified.

    Successful migration output to the new output directory.

Additional Information

Language Concepts

Find out about the new Language Concepts when using Encore RPG.

Language Reference

Describes the Encore RPG programming language reference.

Getting Started with Visual Studio

Learn to code in Visual Studio

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