scriptcs - C# in console

Date: September 9, 2013

It was always bothering me, when I wanted to run one simple command, and I needed to create new C# console project in Visual Studio to do that. With scriptcs I can finally do that in console. Project scriptcs allows you to run single commands and also C# script files.

Installation

The easiest way to install scriptcs is Chocolatey ('apt-get' for windows). If you didn't hear about it, you should definitely try it out. To install Chocolatey run the following command in console:

@powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy unrestricted -Command "iex ((new-object net.webclient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))" && SET PATH=%PATH%;%systemdrive%\chocolatey\bin

Once you have Chocolatey installed, you can install scriptcs:

cinst scriptcs

Chocolatey will install scriptcs to %APPDATA%\scriptcs\. You need to update your PATH accordingly, to easily run it from command line.

Getting started

Once scriptcs is installed and added to your PATH, you can run it with scriptcs command:

C:\> scriptcs
scriptcs (ctrl-c or blank to exit)
> var message = "Hello, world!";
> Console.WriteLine(message);
Hello, world!
>
C:\>

You can also create a script hello.csx:

var message = "Hello, world!";
Console.WriteLine(message);

And run it from command line:

C:\>scriptcs hello.csx
Hello, world!

You can find more about scriptcs on scriptcs.net.

EDIT: You don't even need Console.WriteLine to print variables (thanks Filip W.):

C:\>scriptcs
scriptcs (ctrl-c or blank to exit)
> var message = "Hello, scriptcs!";
> message
Hello, scriptcs!
> int four = 2 + 2;
> four
4
>

Tags: programming tools