freebasic / Fbc

FreeBASIC - A multi-platform BASIC Compiler
Copyright (C) 2004-2021 The FreeBASIC development team.

Official site:      https://freebasic.net/
Forum:              https://freebasic.net/forum/
Online manual:      https://freebasic.net/wiki/DocToc
fbc project page:   https://sourceforge.net/projects/fbc/
GitHub mirror:      https://github.com/freebasic/fbc
Discord:            https://discord.gg/286rSdK
IRC channel:        ##freebasic at chat.freenode.net
Features:           https://freebasic.net/wiki/CompilerFeatures
Requirements:       https://freebasic.net/wiki/CompilerRequirements

FreeBASIC consists of fbc (the command line compiler), the runtime libraries
(libfb and libfbgfx), and FreeBASIC header files for third-party libraries.
In order to produce executables, fbc uses the GNU binutils (assembler,
linker). When compiling for architectures other than 32bit x86, fbc depends
on gcc to generate assembly.

Documentation of language features, compiler options and many other details
is available in the FB manual. For help & support, visit the FB forum!

o Installation & Usage

FreeBASIC gives you the FreeBASIC compiler program (fbc or fbc.exe),
plus the tools and libraries used by it. fbc 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. fbc itself is not a graphical code editor or IDE!

Win32 (similar for Win64):
  Download and extract latest FreeBASIC-x.xx.x-win32.zip or
  download and extract latest FreeBASIC-x.xx.x-win64.zip.

  Now you can use fbc.exe from the installation directory to compile FB
  programs (*.bas files) into executables (*.exe files). Open a command
  prompt (cmd.exe) and run fbc.exe from there, for example:
    1. In the opened command prompt, type in the following command and
       press ENTER:
         > fbc.exe examples\hello.bas
    2. This should have created examples\hello.exe in the FreeBASIC
       installation directory. You can run it by entering:
         > examples\hello.exe

  A FreeBASIC-x.xx.x-win32.exe installer is also available but should
  only be installed on win32 platforms.
    1. Click Start -> FreeBASIC -> Open console (installer only)
    2. In the opened command prompt, type in the following command and
       press ENTER:
         > fbc.exe examples\hello.bas
    3. This should have created examples\hello.exe in the FreeBASIC
       installation directory. You can run it by entering:
         > examples\hello.exe

  Optionally, you can install a text editor or IDE which will invoke fbc.exe
  for you, for example:
    WinFBE https://github.com/PaulSquires/WinFBE
    FBIDE: https://fbide.freebasic.net/
    FBEdit: http://radasm.cherrytree.at/fbedit/

Linux (if FreeBASIC is not available through your package manager):
  Download and extract the latest FreeBASIC-x.xx.x-linux.tar.gz. Open a
  terminal and cd into the extracted FreeBASIC-x.xx.x-linux directory, and
  run "sudo ./install.sh -i" to copy the FB setup into /usr/local.
  To compile FB programs, please install the following packages (names may
  vary depending on your Linux distribution):
    Debian/Ubuntu:
      gcc libncurses5-dev libffi-dev libgl1-mesa-dev
      libx11-dev libxext-dev libxrender-dev libxrandr-dev libxpm-dev
      libtinfo5
    Fedora:
      gcc ncurses-devel ncurses-compat-libs libffi-devel mesa-libGL-devel
      libX11-devel libXext-devel libXrender-devel libXrandr-devel
      libXpm-devel
  If you want to use the 32bit version of FB on a 64bit system, it is
  necessary to have the gcc 32bit multilib support and 32bit versions
  of the libraries installed.
    Debian/Ubuntu:
      gcc-multilib lib32ncurses5-dev libx11-dev:i386 libxext-dev:i386
      libxrender-dev:i386 libxrandr-dev:i386 libxpm-dev:i386 libtinfo5:i386

  Now you can use fbc to compile FB programs (*.bas files) into executables.
  For example:
    $ cd FreeBASIC-x.xx.x-linux/examples
    $ fbc hello.bas
  This should have created the hello program. You can run it by entering:
    $ ./hello

  Optionally, you can install a text editor or IDE which will invoke fbc for
  your, for example:
    Geany: https://geany.org (sudo apt-get install geany)

DOS:
  Download and extract the latest FreeBASIC-x.xx.x-dos.zip.

  Now you can use fbc.exe from the installation directory to compile FB
  programs (*.bas files) into executables (*.exe files). For example:
    > fbc.exe examples\hello.bas
  This should have created examples\hello.exe. You can run it by entering:
    > examples\hello.exe

o Licensing

The FreeBASIC compiler (fbc) is licensed under the GNU GPLv2 or later.

The FreeBASIC runtime library (libfb and the thread-safe version, libfbmt)
and the FreeBASIC graphics library (libfbgfx and the thread-safe version,
libfbgfxmt) 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/libffi-license.txt.

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           https://gcc.gnu.org/
- GNU binutils  https://gnu.org/software/binutils/
- GNU debugger  https://gnu.org/software/gdb/
- GoRC          http://godevtool.com/
- LibFFI        https://sourceware.org/libffi/
- MinGW         http://www.mingw.org/
- MinGW-w64     https://mingw-w64.org/
- OpenXDK       http://openxdk.sourceforge.net/
- 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,
    lead developer 2004 to 2010
    FB headers (FBSWIG) & emscripten port
    too many additions and improvements to list
- 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)
    lead developer 2010 to 2017
    automatic header / bindings generation (fbfrog)
    FB releases 0.21 to 1.05.0, C & LLVM backends, 64bit port,
    dynamic arrays in UDTs, virtual methods, preprocessor-only mode,
    many fixes and improvements.to compiler, rtlib & gfxlib2
    too many additions and improvements to list
- 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 0.17 to 0.20, and later 1.06.0 and up
    FB documentation (wiki maintenance, fbdocs offline-docs generator),
    Gosub/Return, profiling support, dialect specifics, DOS serial driver,
    miscellaneous fixes and improvements.to compiler, rtlib & gfxlib2
    lead developer since 2017
- 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 (matthew.w.fearnley[at]gmail.com)
    Print Using & Co, ImageInfo, and others, dialect specifics,
    optimization improvements in the compiler, many fixes and improvements.
    rtlib & gfxlib2 fixes and improvements
    documentation and examples
    forum administrator and moderator since forever
- 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
- adeyblue
    Direct2D windows driver
    run time and gfx library improvements and fixes
- AGS
    gdbm, zlib, Mini-XML, PCRE headers
- Angelo Rosina (angros47[at]gmail.com)
    gfxlib2 extensions for OpenGL 2D rendering
    integration of threading and dynamic libraries for DOS port (by monochromator)
    integration of emscripten branch and improvements
- 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
    ARM port, 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
- fxm
    documentation writer and manager for many years
    detailed technical articles, bug tracking and investigations
    documentation forum moderator
- 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
- Laurent Gras / SARG (debug[at]aliceadsl.fr)
    gas64 backend emitter
    improvements and fixes for stabs debugging
    fbdebugger project https://users.freebasic-portal.de/sarg
- Luther Ramsey (luther.ramsey[at]gmail.com)
    freebasic.net forums moderator
- 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
- MJK
    big_int header fixes
- MOD
    wx-c, BASS headers; -lang qb support for built-in macros,
    "real" Rnd() algorithm
- Nek (dave[at]nodtveidt.net)
    Win32 API headers
- Paul Squires (support[at]planetsquires.com)
    WinFBE IDE project and fbc compiler distribution bundle
- Plasma
    FMOD and BASS headers & examples
- Ralph Versteegen
    fixes / improvements to compiler, rtlib, gfxlib2, tests and headers
- Randy Keeling (randy[at]keeling.com)
    GSL matrix example
- Saga Musix (Jojo)
    BASS examples with sounds
- Sisophon2001
    gfxlib2 fixes, Nehe OpenGL lesson ports
- Stefan Wurzinger (swurzinger[at]gmx.at)
    compiler, runtime library and documentation generator improvements
    daily development builds, documentation builds and testing
    header/bindings updates
- Sterling Christensen (sterling[at]engineer.com)
    Ex-project-member, author of FB's initial QB-like graphics library
- TJF (Thomas.Freiherr[at]gmx.net)
    ARM port, 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)
    https://freebasic.net/wiki/ContributorList
- All users that reported bugs, requested features and as such helped 
  improving the compiler, language and run-time libraries.