F# supports functional programming constructs such as

• Functions as values, allowing for flexible manipulation of functions. For more information, see Functions as First-Class Values.

• Function composition and pipelining, allowing the chaining of functions together to create new functions and to simplify the coding of successive operations on data.

• Type inference, which reduces the need to explicitly call out types without sacrificing type safety.

• Automatic generalization, which promotes code reuse by making it easy to write code that works with a variety of different types without any additional effort.

• Pattern matching support, which simplifies complex conditional code, and types optimized to be used with pattern matching, such as discriminated unions.

• Collection types for working with immutable data, including list and sequence types.

• Lambda expressions, which are key to many functional programming constructs.

• Partial application of function arguments, which allows new functions to be created implicitly from existing ones.

F# supports object-oriented programming and .NET concepts such as

• The .NET object model including objects with properties, methods and events, polymorphism or virtual functions, inheritance, and interfaces.

• Data encapsulation, or separating the public interface of a type from the implementation.

• Operator overloading that works well with generics and built-in primitive types.

• Type extensions, which allows you to extend an existing type easily without the additional overhead of creating a new derived type.

• Object expressions, which allow small objects to be defined implicitly in expressions, as needed, rather than explicitly declared.

• Access to the .NET Framework and any managed code assembly.

• Access to native code through P/Invoke.

F# also supports all the common imperative programming constructs, such as conditional statements and looping constructs.

• The Visual F# product also includes an F# library with many useful functions and types, including APIs for collections such as lists, arrays, maps, sets and sequences. The F# library also supports reflection, events and formatted I/O.

• In addition, the F# library includes support for asynchronous workflows to support parallel computations, and mechanisms for communicating among parallel workflows. For more information, see Asynchronous Workflows (F#), Control.Async Class (F#) and Control.MailboxProcessor<'Msg> Class (F#).

• The main F# library is FSharp.Core.dll. Additional libraries are available in the F# Power Pack, available at CodePlex.

F# provides an interactive window, which allows you to enter F# code and have it immediately compiled and executed. This allows you to easily prototype code constructs and test your code while you write it. The interactive window runs the F# interactive tool, fsi.exe, which you can also run from the command line. For more information, see F# Interactive Reference.

F# is integrated with Visual Studio, and has support for

• Projects, including templates for common project types

• IntelliSense

• Debugging

• Deployment

The F# language has its roots in the OCaml language, and shares a common core language with OCaml.

Other Resources