mono-mcs

About mono-mcs

From Debian's package description

This is the Mono C# (C-Sharp) 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 and 5.0 compiler, a platform-independent compiler which produces CIL (Common Intermediate Language) binary executables.

This compiler targets the CLI 2.0, 4.0 or 4.5 runtime version.

The mcs compiler supports different C# versions as follows. With C# 2.0 it supports:

• generics
• iterators (yield)
• nullable value types
• partial types
• anonymous methods
• static classes
• coalesce operator: ??

With C# 3.0 it supports:

• Language Integrated Query (LINQ)
• object initializers
• collection initializers
• anonymous types
• local variable type inference
• implicitly-typed arrays
• lambda expressions
• automatic properties
• extension methods
• partial methods

With C# 4.0 it supports:

• dynamic binding (duck typing)
• named and optional arguments
• covariant and contravariant generic type parameters

With C# 5.0 (which is the default) it supports:

• asynchronous methods
• caller info attributes (as of Mono 3.0 currently not supported!)

Mono is a platform for running and developing applications based on the ECMA/ISO Standards. Mono is an open source effort led by Xamarin. Mono provides a complete CLR (Common Language Runtime) including compiler and runtime, which can produce and execute CIL (Common Intermediate Language) bytecode (aka assemblies), and a class library.

From Debian's description of the mono-mcs package, under that package's license.