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FreeBASIC - A multi-platform BASIC Compiler
Copyright (C) 2004-2012 The FreeBASIC development team.
Official site: http://www.freebasic.net/
Forum: http://www.freebasic.net/forum/
Online manual: http://www.freebasic.net/wiki/DocToc
fbc project page: http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/fbc/
IRC channel: ##freebasic at irc.freenode.net
FreeBASIC consists of fbc (the command line compiler), the runtime libraries
(included into FB programs by fbc), compiler tools (assembler, linker) used
by fbc, and headers and bindings for third-party libraries.
Documentation of language features, compiler options and many other details
is available in the FB manual. For help & support, visit the FB forum!
Features: http://www.freebasic.net/wiki/CompilerFeatures
Requirements: http://www.freebasic.net/wiki/CompilerRequirements
o Installation & Usage
FreeBASIC gives you the FreeBASIC compiler program, called fbc or fbc.exe,
plus the compiler tools and run-time libraries used by fbc. It is a
command line program that takes FreeBASIC source code files (*.bas) and
compiles them into executables. fbc is typically invoked by Integrated
Development Environments (IDEs) or text editors, from a terminal or command
prompt, or through build-systems such as makefiles.
- Win32
- Download the latest FreeBASIC-x.xx.x-win32.exe installer
- Run it and click through it
- Use fbc.exe from the install directory to compile FB code, for example:
- Click Start -> FreeBASIC -> Open console
- In the opened prompt, type in the following command and press ENTER:
> fbc.exe examples\hello.bas
This should have created examples\hello.exe, which can be executed
right away:
> examples\hello.exe
- Optionally: install an IDE for FB, for example:
FBIDE (http://fbide.freebasic.net/)
FBEdit (http://radasm.cherrytree.at/fbedit/)
- Linux
- Download the latest FreeBASIC-x.xx.x-linux.tar.gz
- Extract it
- Open a terminal
- cd into the extracted FreeBASIC-x.xx.x-linux directory
- run "sudo ./install.sh -i"
- Install the following packages (names vary depending on distribution):
Debian/Ubuntu:
x86: amd64 old: amd64 new:
gcc gcc-multilib gcc-multilib
g++ g++-multilib g++-multilib
libncurses5-dev lib32ncurses5-dev lib32ncurses5-dev
libx11-dev ia32-libs libx11-dev:i386
libxext-dev lib32ffi-dev libxext-dev:i386
libxrender-dev libxrender-dev:i386
libxrandr-dev libxrandr-dev:i386
libxpm-dev libxpm-dev:i386
libffi-dev
OpenSUSE:
x86: x86_64:
gcc gcc-32bit
gcc-c++ gcc-c++-32bit
ncurses-devel ncurses-devel-32bit
xorg-x11-devel xorg-x11-devel-32bit
libffi46-devel xorg-x11-libX11-devel-32bit
xorg-x11-libXext-devel-32bit
xorg-x11-libXrender-devel-32bit
xorg-x11-libXpm-devel-32bit
libffi46-devel-32bit
- Use the installed fbc program to compile FB code, for example:
$ fbc examples/hello.bas
This should have created the examples/hello program, which can be
executed right away:
$ examples/hello
- Optionally: install an IDE for FB, for example: Geany (www.geany.org)
- DOS
- Download the latest FreeBASIC-x.xx.x-dos.zip
- Extract it
- Use fbc.exe from the extracted directory to compile FB code,
for example:
> fbc.exe examples\hello.bas
This should have created examples\hello.exe, which can be executed
right away:
> examples\hello.exe
o Licensing
The FreeBASIC compiler (fbc) is licensed under the GNU GPLv2 or later.
The FreeBASIC runtime library (in both normal (libfb) and thread-safe
(libfbmt) versions) and the FreeBASIC graphics library (libfbgfx) are
licensed under the GNU LGPLv2 or later, with this exception to allow
linking to it statically:
As a special exception, the copyright holders of this library give
you permission to link this library with independent modules to
produce an executable, regardless of the license terms of these
independent modules, and to copy and distribute the resulting
executable under terms of your choice, provided that you also meet,
for each linked independent module, the terms and conditions of the
license of that module. An independent module is a module which is
not derived from or based on this library. If you modify this library,
you may extend this exception to your version of the library, but
you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete
this exception statement from your version.
The FreeBASIC documentation is licensed under the GNU FDL.
Dependencies on third-party libraries:
The FreeBASIC runtime library uses LibFFI to implement the Threadcall
functionality. This means that, by default, FreeBASIC programs will be
linked against LibFFI when using Threadcall. LibFFI is released under
the MIT/Expat license, see doc/LICENSE.libffi.
By default, FreeBASIC programs are linked against various system and/or
support libraries, depending on the platform. Those include the DJGPP
libraries used by FreeBASIC for DOS and the MinGW/GCC libraries used by
FreeBASIC for Windows.
o Included/used third-party tools and libraries:
- DJGPP http://www.delorie.com/
- GCC http://gcc.gnu.org/
- GNU binutils http://www.gnu.org/software/binutils/
- GNU debugger http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/
- GoRC http://www.godevtool.com/
- LibFFI http://sourceware.org/libffi/
- MinGW http://www.mingw.org/
- OpenXDK http://www.openxdk.org/
- TDM-GCC http://tdm-gcc.tdragon.net/
o Credits
Project members:
- Andre Victor T. Vicentini (av1ctor[at]yahoo.com.br)
Founder, main compiler developer, author of many parts of the runtime,
FB headers (FBSWIG)
- Angelo Mottola (a.mottola[at]libero.it)
Author of the FB graphics library, built-in threads, thread-safe
runtime, ports I/O, dynamic library loading, Linux port.
- Bryan Stoeberl (b_stoeberl[at]yahoo.com)
SSE/SSE2 floating point math, AST vectorization.
- Daniel C. Klauer (daniel.c.klauer[at]web.de)
FB releases since 0.21, preprocessor-only mode, C emitter,
miscellaneous fixes and improvements.
- Daniel R. Verkamp (i_am_drv[at]yahoo.com)
DOS, XBox, Darwin, *BSD ports, DLL and static library automation,
VB-compatible runtime functions, compiler optimizations,
miscellaneous fixes and improvements.
- Ebben Feagan (sir_mud[at]users.sourceforge.net)
FB headers, C emitter
- Jeff Marshall (coder[at]execulink.com)
FB releases since 0.17, FB documentation (wiki maintenance, fbdocs
offline-docs generator), Gosub/Return, profiling support, dialect
specifics, DOS serial driver, miscellaneous fixes and improvements.
- Mark Junker (mjscod[at]gmx.de)
Author of huge parts of the runtime (printing support, date/time
functions, SCR/LPTx/COM/console/keyboard I/O), Cygwin port,
first FB installer scripts.
- Matthew Fearnley (counting.pine[at]virgin.net)
Print Using & Co, ImageInfo, and others, dialect specifics,
optimization improvements in the compiler, many fixes and improvements.
- Ruben Rodriguez (rubentbstk[at]gmail.com)
Var keyword, const specifier, placement new, operator overloading and
other OOP-related work, C BFD wrapper, many fixes and improvements.
- Simon Nash
AndAlso/OrElse operators, ellipsis for array initializers,
miscellaneous fixes and improvements.
Contributors:
- 1000101
gfxlib2 patches, e.g. image buffer alignment
- Abdullah Ali (voodooattack[at]hotmail.com)
Windows NT DDK headers & examples
- AGS
gdbm, zlib, Mini-XML, PCRE headers
- Claudio Tinivella (tinycla[at]yahoo.it)
Gtk tutorials
- Chris Davies (c.g.davies[at]gmail.com)
OpenAL headers & examples
- Dinosaur
CGUI headers
- D.J.Peters
ODE headers & examples, Win32 API header fixes
- Dumbledore
wx-c headers & examples
- dr0p (dr0p[at]perfectbg.com)
PostgreSQL headers & examples
- Edmond Leung (leung.edmond[at]gmail.com)
SDL headers & examples
- Eric Lope (vic_viperph[at]yahoo.com)
OpenGL & GLU headers & examples, examples/gfx/rel-*.bas demos
- Florent Heyworth (florent.heyworth[at]swissonline.ch)
Win32 API sql/obdc headers
- fsw (fsw.fb[at]comcast.net)
Win32 API headers, Gtk/Glade/wx-c examples
- Garvan O'Keeffe (sisophon2001[at]yahoo.com)
FB ports of many NeHe OpenGL lessons, PDFlib examples
- Hans L. Nemeschkal (Hans.Leo.Nemeschkal[at]univie.ac.at)
DISLIN headers
- Jofers (spam[at]betterwebber.com)
ThreadCall keyword, libffi/libjit headers, FreeType examples
- Jose Manuel Postigo (postigo[at]uma.es)
Linux serial devices support
- Laanan Fisher (laananfisher[at]gmail.com)
FB test suite using CUnit
- Matthew Riley (pestery)
OpenGL, GLFW, glext, FreeGLUT, cryptlib headers
- Matthias Faust (matthias_faust[at]web.de)
SDL_ttf headers & examples
- Marzec
SDL headers, SDL_bassgl, SDL_opengl and SDL_key examples
First file routines for FB's rtlib
- MOD
wx-c, BASS headers; -lang qb support for built-in macros,
"real" Rnd() algorithm
- Nek (dave[at]nodtveidt.net)
Win32 API headers
- Plasma
FMOD and BASS headers & examples
- Randy Keeling (randy[at]keeling.com)
GSL matrix example
- Saga Musix (Jojo)
BASS examples with sounds
- Sisophon2001
gfxlib2 fixes, Nehe OpenGL lesson ports
- Sterling Christensen (sterling[at]engineer.com)
Ex-project-member, author of FB's initial QB-like graphics library
- TeeEmCee
gfxlib2 fixes
- TJF (Thomas.Freiherr[at]gmx.net)
GTK+, glib, Cairo, Pango headers & examples, SQLiteExtensions headers
- zydon
Win32 API examples
Greetings:
- Plasma: Owner of the freebasic.net domain and main site hoster,
many thanks to him.
- VonGodric: Author of the first FreeBASIC IDE: FBIDE.
- Everybody that helped writing the documentation (and in special Nexinarus
who started it), more details at:
http://www.freebasic.net/wiki/wikka.php?wakka=ContributorList
- All users that reported bugs, requested features and as such helped
improving the compiler, language and run-time libraries.
