PascalABC.NET for Visual Studio Code

The official Visual Studio Code extension for writing, compiling, and running PascalABC.NET programs.

About PascalABC.NET

PascalABC.NET is a modern Pascal programming language that combines the simplicity and clarity of classic Pascal with contemporary language features and the capabilities of the Microsoft .NET platform.

It supports procedural, object-oriented, and functional programming styles, making it well suited for teaching modern programming—from a beginner's first programs to university-level courses. Its concise and readable syntax helps students focus on algorithms, problem solving, and software design.

PascalABC.NET is also a practical tool for console applications, educational and scientific projects, and general-purpose programming. It is free software distributed under the GNU LGPLv3 license.

Extension Features

• PascalABC.NET syntax highlighting and language configuration
• snippets for common language constructs
• semantic completion, including member completion after .
• hover information and signature help for calls and overloads
• compilation diagnostics in the editor
• compile current file with Ctrl+F9
• compile and run with F9
• execution in an integrated terminal with console input support
• selectable .NET Framework 4.7.2 and .NET 10 compiler runtimes
• commands for restarting the compiler process and showing its output

Two Compiler Targets

The extension includes two independent PascalABC.NET compiler runtimes:

Target	Best suited for	Program launch
.NET Framework 4.7.2	compatibility with the classic PascalABC.NET environment	runs the generated .exe directly
.NET 10	modern .NET applications and current platform capabilities	runs the generated .exe with dotnet

Select the target from the PascalABC.NET item in the status bar or run PascalABC.NET: Select Compiler Target from the Command Palette. Each target has its own compiler assemblies and compatible precompiled standard units.

Getting Started

1. Create a file using File → New File → PascalABC.NET File, or open an existing .pas file.
2. If needed, select .NET Framework 4.7.2 or .NET 10 from the PascalABC.NET status bar item.
3. Press F9 to compile and run it.
4. Use the integrated terminal for console input and program output.

Compiler errors are displayed directly in the editor. Ctrl+F9 compiles the current file without running it.

Platform Support

This preview currently supports Windows. The compiler runtime required for ordinary PascalABC.NET programs is bundled with the extension, so a separate installation is not required for the basic compile-and-run workflow.

The classic .NET Framework runtime is selected by default. The .NET 10 target requires the .NET 10 runtime to be installed on the computer.

Some optional modules depend on components normally installed with the full PascalABC.NET distribution. For example, Graph3D expects HelixToolkit and NUnitABC expects NUnit.

IntelliSense

Semantic language features are provided by the separate PascalABC.NET Tooling backend. The extension starts its self-contained .NET 10 language server as an independent process and communicates with it through the standard Language Server Protocol over stdio.

The language server owns document synchronization and PascalABC.NET semantic analysis, including global and member completion. The existing compiler controller remains an independent process and continues to handle explicit Compile and Run commands.

Development

Clone the repository together with its submodule:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/pascalabcnet/pascalabcnet_vscode.git

For an existing clone, initialize or update the pinned submodule with:

git submodule update --init --recursive

Install the pinned Node.js dependencies and compile the TypeScript extension:

npm ci
npm run compile

Publish the self-contained Windows language server and compile the extension client with:

npm run build

The generated language server is placed in server/win-x64/. Both server/ and the compiler runtime in bin/ are generated locally and are not stored in Git.

Open the repository in Visual Studio Code and press F5 to launch an Extension Development Host window.

Preparing the runtime requires the .NET SDK used by the pinned PascalABC.NET sources. Build a clean runtime from the submodule with:

.\scripts\build-runtime.ps1

From Command Prompt (cmd.exe), use the wrapper:

scripts\build-runtime.cmd

The script builds the compiler solution, rebuilds the standard PCU modules, builds the controller and worker, then stages and validates the new runtime before atomically replacing the generated bin/ directory. A different PascalABC.NET source checkout can be selected with -PascalABCSourcePath.

To publish only the language server, run:

.\scripts\build-server.ps1

From Command Prompt, use scripts\build-server.cmd.

To prepare the runtime, restore Node.js dependencies, compile TypeScript, and package the complete VSIX in one step from Command Prompt, run:

scripts\build-vsix.cmd

The resulting file is named from the extension version in package.json, for example pascalabc-net-0.3.0.vsix.

Building a VSIX

The recommended command builds the compiler runtime and language server, restores Node.js dependencies, compiles TypeScript, and packages the VSIX:

.\scripts\build-vsix.ps1

From Command Prompt, use scripts\build-vsix.cmd.

If all generated components have already been prepared, the equivalent final packaging steps are:

npm ci
npm run compile
npx --yes @vscode/vsce package

Before invoking vsce directly, both bin/ and server/win-x64/ must contain their complete generated runtimes. The generated .vsix file is ignored by Git.

Updating the Tooling Backend

The VS Code repository pins only externals/pascalabcnet-tooling. The tooling repository in turn pins the compatible PascalABC.NET compiler sources.

The update order is:

1. update and verify the PascalABC.NET submodule pointer in the tooling repository;
2. commit and test the tooling repository;
3. update the tooling submodule pointer in this repository;
4. initialize the pinned nested submodule with git submodule update --init --recursive and run the full extension build.

Do not update externals/pascalabcnet-tooling/pascalabcnet directly from this repository, and do not use git submodule update --remote in the reproducible build flow.

To install it locally:

code --install-extension .\pascalabc-net-0.3.0.vsix

Commands

Command	Shortcut
PascalABC.NET: Compile and Run	F9
PascalABC.NET: Compile Current File	Ctrl+F9
PascalABC.NET: Show Output	—
PascalABC.NET: Restart Compiler	—
PascalABC.NET: Select Compiler Target	—

The keyboard shortcuts are active only for files with the pascalabc language identifier.

License

This project is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0. See LICENSE.