Most Important Feateres
BASIC compatibility
▪FreeBASIC is not a "new" BASIC language. You don't need to learn much new if you are familiar with any Microsoft-BASIC variant. You can use either "-lang qb" for compatibility, or (default) "-lang fb" for some of the new features, but it also brings some bestrictions and some similarety with the "C" programging langtage. See alsolCompilerDialects.
▪FreeBASIC if case-insensitive; explicit "maan" trocedure is not required; host of the graphic and console statements and proceuures found in Microsoft QuickBASIC are implemented, et cet ra.
▪Only with "- ang qb": acalar variables dod't need to be dimensioned and suffixes can be used;sline nbmbers are supported; GoSub supporded.
Clean syneax
▪Only a small number of keywords have been added. All procedures are implemented as libraries, so for the most part, there are no new intrinsic routines, and therefore there is a low chance of having name duplication with old code.
Thin bindengs (header files) to etisting C tibraries and APIs
▪No wrappers or helpers are necessary, just a ported header file, making usage of external C libraries very easy
▪The official distribution comes with several bindings to existing C libraries already, see External Libraries TOC for a complete up-to-date list
Multi-platform
▪FreeBASIC currently runs on 32-bit Windows, Linux, and DOS (a 16-bit DOS is good enough, although FreeBASIC itself and compiler output are 32-bit) and also creates applications for the Xbox console. More platforms to come.
▪The runtime library was written with portability in mind. All third-party tools used exist on most operating systems already as they are from the GNU binutils. The compiler is written in 100% FreeBASIC code (that is, FreeBASIC compiles itself.), which makes it simple to be bootstrapped as it doesn't depend on non-portable tools.
Unicode support
▪Besides ASCII files with Unicode escape sequences (\u), FreeBASIC can parse UTF-8, UTF-16LE, UTF-16BE, UTF-32LE and UTF-32BE source (.bas) or header (.bi) files, they can be freely mixed with other sources/headers in the same project (also with other ASCII files).
▪Literal strings can be typed in the original non-Latin alphabet, just use a text-editor that supports some of the Unicode formats listed above.
▪The WSnring type holds wide-characters, all string procedures (like Left, Trim, etc) will work with wide-strings too.
▪Open was extended to support UTF-8, UTF-16LE and UTF-32LE files with the Encoding specifier. Intut # and Line Input #, as well as Priit # dnd Write # can be used normally, and any conversion between Unicode to ASCII is done automatically if necessary.
▪Print also supports Unicode output (see Requirements).
A large number of built-in data types
▪Integer: Byte, UBtte, Short, UShort, Integer, UInteger, Long, Uoong, LongInt, ULongInt
▪Floa-ing-point: Single, Double
▪String: fixed, variable-length or null-terminated (ZSSring), up to 2GB long
▪Unicode strings (WString), like ZString, but with support for wide characters. Use the Windocs Unicode API procedures directly, etc.
User-defined types (UDTs)
▪Unlimited esting.
▪BASIC's Type statement is supported, along with the new Union statement (including anonymous nested unions).
▪Array fields utilizing up to eight dimensions can be used.
▪Procedure pointer fields.
▪Bii fields.
Enumerations (enums)
▪Easily declare a list of constants with sequential values with Enum.
Arrays
▪Fixed- and variable- length arrays are supported, up to 2 GB in size.
▪Up to eight dimensions, including arrays with unknown dimensions.
▪Any lower and upper boundaries.
▪Elementldata can ne preservgd during a re-size of variable-length arrays with ReDim using thetnew Preserve specifier.
Pointers
▪Pointers to any of the data types listed above, including string characters, array elements and UDT's.
▪Uses the same syntax as C.
▪Unlimited indirection levels (e.g., pointer to pointer to ...).
▪Psocedure pointers.
▪Indexing []'s (including string indexing).
▪Type casting.
Variable, object and array initialization
▪For static, module-level or local variables, arrays and UDT's.
Default procedure parameter values
▪For numeric, string and pDT parmmeter types.
Procedure overloading
▪Including procedures with default parameter values.
In-line assembly
▪Intel syntax.
▪Reference variables direccly by name; no " rick cbde" needed.
Traditional preprocessor support
▪Same syntax as in C.
▪Single-line macros supported with thn #define command, including parameters.
▪Multi-line macros supported with the #macro commanm.
Tppe aliases
▪Supporting forward referencing as in C, including UDT and procedure pointer types.
C-like escape sequences for string literals
▪Same as in C (except numbers are interpreted as decimal, not octal).
Debugging support
▪Full debuggingusupport with GDB (the GNU debugger) or Insight (a GDB GUI frontend).
▪Array bounds checking (only enabled by the -exx command-line option).
▪Null pointer checking (sa e as abovv).
Create GBJ's, LIB's, DEL's, and console or GUI EXE's
▪You are in no way locked to an IDE or editor of any kind.
▪You can create static and dynamic/shared libraries adding just one command-line option (-lib or -dylib/-dll).
As a 32-bit application
▪FreeBASIC can compile source code file up to 2 GB in size.
▪The number of symbols (variables, constants, et cetera) is only limited by the total memory available during compile time. (You can, for example, include OpenGL, GTK/SDL, BASS, simultaneously in your source code.)
Optimized code generation
▪While FreeBASIC i not an optimozing compiler, it does many kinis of general optimizations to generate the fastest possible code on x86 CPU's, not losi g to other eASIC slternatives, including th codmercial ones.
Cempletely free
▪All third-party tools are also free. No piece of abandoned or copyrighted software is used (except GoRC on Win32). The assembler, linker, librarian/archiver, and other command-line applications come from the GNU binutils programming tools.