UnityScript 2 CSharp conversion tool

I don't think it's that simple. Such checkbox would mean boo and unity script would still remain all around the code base and create extra work from time to time when code gets refactored and improved. You cant just completely ignore the old code and leave it unsupported if it's using the core features from the engine.

Let it die.

 

I agree with you, but I don't think they'll do this. Many people see C# as superior, but I prefer the simpler syntax and artistic flexibility of UnityScript. Plus it was a big reason so many of us web and Flash designer made the jump to Unity in the first place. There was very little barrier for us to use Unity. Now new Javascripters will have to learn a new language if they want to use the software. Javascript might seem messy to many coders, but as an artist who likes to iterate quickly, i find Javascript to be less rigid. To me that's it's charm, and we will be losing that in this transition. Anyways Javascript and WebGL are only becoming more popular, and I am seeing people experiment more with them. Just as with Flash giving way to HTML5, maybe in 5 years there will be an open source game engine based on Javascript and WebGL - talk about open standards

 

I personally use strictly Unityscript. It was what originally brought me over to Unity when I was comparing engines (Unreal, Unity, etc). For me, C# is clunky and ugly and extremely verbose.

Example of what I mean:
JS

Code (csharp):

1. function MoveMeRight(){
2.   transform.position.x+=1;
3. }

C#

Code (csharp):

1. using UnityEngine;
2. public class MoveMe: MonoBehaviour {
3.    void MoveMeRight() {
4.       transform.position = transform.position+Vector3(1,0,0);
5.    }
6. }

It's just a lot more to write to do the same exact thing.
Let alone the complete lack of dynamic arrays
JS

Code (csharp):

1. var a = new Array();
2.  
3. function AddRow(s){
4.    a.Push(s);
5. }

C#

Code (csharp):

1. using System;
2. using System.Collections;
3. using System.Collections.Generic;
4. using UnityEngine;
5. public class Example : MonoBehaviour {
6.    
7.    public String[] a;
8.    
9.    void AddRow(String s){
10.        String[] b = a;
11.        a = new String[a.Length+1];
12.        int i = 0;
13.        foreach(String d in b){
14.            a[i] = d;
15.            i++;
16.        }
17.        a[a.Length-1] = s;
18.    }
19.  
20. }

Also I tried using your "auto converter", and I just get this error:

Using the package version available https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/unityscript2csharp/releases/tag/v1.0.6502.12705


You keep saying you want to keep Unity appealing to artists and non-programmer types, but Unityscript is the ENTIRETY of your draw in that department. You also keep saying you have something "in the works" that will keep that focus. So here's my suggestion. Instead of dropping support for your most user friendly aspect and draw for the non-programmers before you have any form of replacement, you keep it in until your new replacement has a foothold.
I understand the wish to move to .net 4.6, however you said in your own post its just a matter of updating the unityscript compiler to support it and it would "cost time and money" to do so. What do you think you're telling your customers do to? Instead of telling your dev team to spend a couple months converting one tool, you're telling your thousands of customers to convert their entire projects to an entirely different language costing your CUSTOMERS hundreds of thousands of dollars (combined) and months of development time, potentially halting the progress of their entire projects.
It's a horrible dick move, and a real turn off for new AND veteran users of your software.

 

As someone new to Unity myself, I'd say that's not C#'s fault, that's Unity's implementation, but your right the latter looks gross (and by that I mean just the transform line, the rest is you not being fair, c# lets you have functions outside of classes(edit: what was I thinking), and pre-ES6 classes are syntactically uglier)

I think this is misguided, Javascript gives you a dynamic list-y thing and calls it and array, while C# gives you a bunch of data structures and lets you choose the most appropriate for your needs.

Ultimately when I ask C# for an array I want a contigous block of memory, fast to access slow to resize. If I want something growable I use a list (or a stack or...)
TLDR: if you want something like Javscript's array use a List

 

This is a perfect example And well said - i feel like the unity environment has gotten a lot less artist friendly with this move. It's great for programmers, but it's also part of the reason many of us left Flash when they introduced the much more verbose ActionScript 3.

 

2017.1 gives "compilation" error, and 2017.2 gives "compilationpipeline" error.

 

I was pointing out the fact that a comparable equivilent doesn't exist on C#. Lists are close, but still just not as simple. In JS, it's much easier to just make an array, push a bunch of data into it, then create/resize a natural array and drop the data in, rather than create an array, dulicate that array, add the new row, merge the arrays, rinse repeat for all however many items you have.

The biggest losses here are the simplicity for newer users and the amount of projects that just now became completely defunct and are requiring developers to spend months converting projects and reassigning variables, recreating/fixing prefabs, reassigning script mismatches, etc.

 

ugh, are you aware of

Code (CSharp):

1. Array.Copy

? Or Linq, for that matter ?:

Code (CSharp):

1. void AddRow(string s)
2. {
3.   a = a.ToList().Add(s).ToArray();
4. }

No ? I recommend to become more familiar with them.

 

No I'm not. and I can safely say most other people in my position aren't either. And seeing as when putting together those examples I went back thru the documentation to double check my assumptions and didn't find them, otherwise I wouldn't have made those examples. So my examples still stand. And your code is still a good example of the verboseness of C# over JS. There's just so much extra stuff to type to do the exact same thing, and to someone like me (and apparently others) this is horrid and ugly. Why would I do 3, 4, 5, or 20x the typing to do stuff I can do much simpler, much easier, and to be honest, with much better documentation.


As for the converter itself, I installed 2017.3 just to test this, and it doesn't seem to do anything.
A relatively new project (only a few days old), copied it to a new folder, imported the package with the integrated tool, and it seems to "run" but do nothing. There's 8 js scripts in there, and not a single one is touched. All the assigned scripts to gameobjects are still assigned to the js files, and I don't see any new files. Something seems broken.

 

I get the menu, and when clicking on it I get the dialog asking what I want to do.
I click accept yes I did make a backup, (copied project folder, converted it to 17.3, etc) and it brings up a new window "converting project to C#" with a progress bar.
Said progress bar takes a couple seconds then closes with "Project successfully converted to C# you may now delete this folder"

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. UnityScript2CSharp converter finished (You can remove 'UnityScript2CSharp' if you dont plan to run the converter in ths project again).
3.  
4. Converting 'Runtime' (9 scripts)
5. Conversion aborted due to compilation errors:
6.  
7.    C:\Projects\Lomma\Lomma T1cs\Assets\Scripts\buildingBase.js(2,8): BCE0021: Namespace 'UnityEngine.UI' not found, maybe you forgot to add an assembly reference?
8.  
9.    C:\Projects\Lomma\Lomma T1cs\Assets\Scripts\unitBase.js(2,8): BCE0021: Namespace 'UnityEngine.UI' not found, maybe you forgot to add an assembly reference?
10.  
11.    C:\Projects\Lomma\Lomma T1cs\Assets\Scripts\buildingBase.js(7,20): BCE0018: The name 'Image' does not denote a valid type ('not found'). Did you mean 'UnityEngine.Experimental.UIElements.Image'?
12.  
13.    C:\Projects\Lomma\Lomma T1cs\Assets\Scripts\gameHandler.js(13,20): BCE0018: The name 'Text' does not denote a valid type ('not found'). Did you mean 'UnityEngine.WSA.Toast'?
14.  
15.    C:\Projects\Lomma\Lomma T1cs\Assets\Scripts\gameHandler.js(29,23): BCE0018: The name 'RawImage' does not denote a valid type ('not found'). Did you mean 'UnityEngine.SocialPlatforms.Range'?
16.  
17.    C:\Projects\Lomma\Lomma T1cs\Assets\Scripts\gameHandler.js(31,24): BCE0018: The name 'Text' does not denote a valid type ('not found'). Did you mean 'UnityEngine.WSA.Toast'?
18.  
19.    C:\Projects\Lomma\Lomma T1cs\Assets\Scripts\gameHandler.js(32,27): BCE0018: The name 'Text' does not denote a valid type ('not found'). Did you mean 'UnityEngine.WSA.Toast'?
20.  
21.    C:\Projects\Lomma\Lomma T1cs\Assets\Scripts\gameHandler.js(33,23): BCE0018: The name 'Text' does not denote a valid type ('not found'). Did you mean 'UnityEngine.WSA.Toast'?
22.  
23.    C:\Projects\Lomma\Lomma T1cs\Assets\Scripts\gameHandler.js(34,26): BCE0018: The name 'Text' does not denote a valid type ('not found'). Did you mean 'UnityEngine.WSA.Toast'?
24.  
25.    C:\Projects\Lomma\Lomma T1cs\Assets\Scripts\gameHandler.js(35,27): BCE0018: The name 'Text' does not denote a valid type ('not found'). Did you mean 'UnityEngine.WSA.Toast'?
26.  
27.    C:\Projects\Lomma\Lomma T1cs\Assets\Scripts\gameHandler.js(36,30): BCE0018: The name 'Text' does not denote a valid type ('not found'). Did you mean 'UnityEngine.WSA.Toast'?
28.  
29.    C:\Projects\Lomma\Lomma T1cs\Assets\Scripts\gameHandler.js(37,24): BCE0018: The name 'Text' does not denote a valid type ('not found'). Did you mean 'UnityEngine.WSA.Toast'?
30.  
31.    C:\Projects\Lomma\Lomma T1cs\Assets\Scripts\gameHandler.js(38,27): BCE0018: The name 'Text' does not denote a valid type ('not found'). Did you mean 'UnityEngine.WSA.Toast'?
32.  
33.    C:\Projects\Lomma\Lomma T1cs\Assets\Scripts\gameHandler.js(39,29): BCE0018: The name 'Text' does not denote a valid type ('not found'). Did you mean 'UnityEngine.WSA.Toast'?
34.  
35.  

 

unity documentation (still) is the same for both - you're nitpicking here, even so with those horrid multipliers of amount of c# code needed to express the same thing as in unityscript - not to mention that 'horrid and ugly' is rather aesthetic than technical attribute ( and to a large degree matter of habit )
As for learning c# - unity is not a good source - try some c# tutorial, unity can use (finally) some latest versions of .net
I understand your frustration, but it's really the only way forward.

 

The files you requested, as well as the obligatory dxdiag when attempting to find what goes horribly horribly wrong.

 

Here, just have all of them since there's like 4 of them that say CSharp, not sure which one you want.

 

My bad, my misunderstanding. Got off a 14 hour shift at work and did that before face-pillowing. Lets try again.

Code (csharp):

1. --------- UnityScript2CSharp Arguments
2.  
3. C:\Users\Tanaalethan\AppData\Local\Temp\Unity3D/UnityScript2CSharp\UnityScript2CSharp.exe --responseFile "C:\Users\Tanaalethan\AppData\Local\Temp\tmp7e0d45a2.tmp" -p "C:/Projects/Lomma/Lomma T1cs" -u "C:/Program Files/Unity 2017.3.0b9/Editor" --outputFile "C:\Users\Tanaalethan\AppData\Local\Temp\US2CS_Lomma T1.log"

 

Alright.. That worked... Mostly. (Yes I did click the Verbose logging)

It actually converted the scripts, but... Broke a few things. Most of it seems to work, but it failed recognize recasts from enum to int

from enum

Code (csharp):

1. (gs.cs)
2. public enum eFaction
3. {
4.     Humanoid = 0,
5.     Beast = 1,
6.     Demon = 2,
7.     Undead = 3
8. }

Code (csharp):

1. (gameHandler.cs)
2. public eFaction thisCompPlayer;
3. ...
4. this.ui_Resource_Gold.text = this.PlayerHandler[this.thisCompPlayer].Gold.ToString();

And it decided to put "this." in front of EVERY variable. like... EVERY VARIABLE.........


It did properly assert the C# script onto my game objects properly and kept their associations and values, so that's a plus. But even this small project I'm testing it on is already going to add a significant amount of time fixing what the converter broke.
I have 10 errors so far just from failed catching of recasting enums to ints. Not hard to fix, just annoying.

also, heading off to work again. I haven't closed Unity yet just incase you need loggig from it that might be lost in temp folders or closing the app.

 

PlayerHandler is just an object array of each individual playerBase script to reference the player slots

Code (javascript):

1. //js works fine
2. enum eFaction {
3.    Humanoid,
4.    Beast,
5.    Demon,
6.    Undead
7. }
8. var thisCompPlayer : eFaction;
9. var PlayerHandler : playerBase[];
10. function Update () {
11. ui_Resource_Gold.text = PlayerHandler[thisCompPlayer].Gold.ToString();
12. }

Code (csharp):

1. //cs converted broken
2. public enum eFaction {
3.     Humanoid = 0,
4.     Beast = 1,
5.     Demon = 2,
6.     Undead = 3
7. }
8. public eFaction thisCompPlayer;
9. public playerBase[] PlayerHandler;
10. public virtual void Update() {
11. this.ui_Resource_Gold.text = this.PlayerHandler[this.thisCompPlayer].Gold.ToString();
12.     }

Essentially, playerBase handles all that player slots resources and upkeep and stuff, then the script here goes "which player are we? 0? alright, pull the resources of player 0 and update the UI"

I realize this. It's just a matter of opening all the files in N++ and pressing CTRL+H, replace all in open files "this." with "" and click OK. Cleans it right up, and you have maybe 3 errors to fix that really actually needed the "this." in there at all because C# is kinda dumb at times with knowing you didn't want a random gameobject, you wanted THIS gameobject.

 

Project converted (again), zero errors. It did fail to assign two scripts to an object, but that's not hard to fix. Just drag them back on

 

But then javascript will take a webassembly in the knee (something will be build on top of it and replace javascript).

 

You might be right - i say it'll be visual coding I like that you think further into the future.

 

Hey what’s with the Unity package? Does this run from the project now?
Thanks
Pete

 

Scratch that, it was actually an issue on my end. It was an old game object that I deleted a couple test scripts but never deleted the object. Usually it removes them from the object when you delete the scripts but this time apparently didn't. All's good.

 

Thanks Adriano, I just installed it and I got the same error someone else had with the unitypackage.

I'm on OSX sierra with Unity 5.6.2p2 using what I think is the most recent version of the tool.

I was having a little trouble running the tool outside of Unity, could you maybe give an example of a really basic conversion setup on OSX?
I tried running it from terminal but I'm not familiar with that and I feel I was doing something wrong there.

 

That's an exceptionally old version of unity.. The in-editor version only works with the newest Beta build of unity (2017.3), doesn't even work with the newest stable build (2017.2), and the one you're using is 5.6.2 which is .. 6 versions behind stable, so 7 versions behind beta? You should probably update at least to stable, if nothing else than for the new features

 

Thanks @Vagaus that’s great!
Yeah I know 5.6 is a bit old now, but a solid version and I have to stick with it ‘till the end of the project unfortunately.

 

Hi there,
Just got the tool running, I thought I'd let you know of what I came across.
Firstly the exe was really buried in the download (I hope I got the right one)


I had a few issues with this type of thing -

Code (JavaScript):

1. var TempMin : String =  N["main"]["temp_min"].Value;  

var TempMin : String = N["main"]["temp_min"].Value;
.js(59,43)Cannot convert 'String' to 'int'.

Also it had a little trouble with plugins.
The name 'TextMeshPro' does not denote a valid type ('not found'). Did you mean 'UnityEngine.TextAnchor'?
I had this in references as --references TextMeshPro is that right?

Thanks!
P.

 

Copy project to new folder (backup)
Install and open 2017.3 Beta and open the project (let it reimport)
Import the US2CS package
Convert project
Save & Close
Open project in 2017.2 Stable (again it reimports)
Continue working on stable platform just with converted scripts and gameobjects

 

Hi -

I tried the automatic converter, but none of my files were converted. Using 2017.3.0f1, I brought my project in with 0 errors, and then brought in the US2CS project.

But there are errors reported in the log after running.

Some of these are:

The line
var Text_Objective : UI.Text;
gives the error "The name 'UI.Text' does not denote a valid type ('not found')."

The line
var Image_Logo : UI.Image;
gives the error "The name 'UI.Image' does not denote a valid type ('not found')."

The line
private var eventSystem : EventSystems.EventSystem;
gives the error "The name 'EventSystems.EventSystem' does not denote a valid type ('not found')."

The line
var MGR_Analytics : analyticsC; //references a script analytics.cs
gives the error "The name 'analyticsC' does not denote a valid type ('not found')."

The line
instructBG.GetComponent(UI.CanvasScaler).referenceResolution.x = width;
gives the error "BCE0005: Unknown identifier: 'UI'."

These aren't all the errors, but a cross sample of some of the repeated ones.

Again, the game compiles and runs with these lines of code and works as it as it should, but they got caught in the autoconverter.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Kindest Regards,
Garry

 

Hi Adriano -

I have started a private conversation with you - please let me know if you don't see it in your inbox.

Kindest Regards,
Garry

 

You’re welcome!

Kindest Regards,
Garry

 

Ok, late to the party...
Recently converted an old pure UnityScript project.
Ran into some problems running the conversion tool, but got it working in the end.
Thought it might be a good idea to share the experience, since it might help someone else.

Environment:
MacOS High Sierra 10.13.3
Unity 2017.3.0f

1. Had no luck with running the tool in Unity.
Could see some weird permission problem in logs.
Also tried running the tool in old version of Unity (5.4), since the github page still recommends it.
That info should probably be updated.

2. Built the tool myself and ran it in command line.
These are the steps I had to perform:

+ built the tool myself in Visual Studio for Mac and ran the .exe via mono from there (Visual Studio took care of all dependencies, much simpler than anticipated).

+ needed to run the tool as sudo (super user) otherwise I got a permission error in "something.../emscripten/node" (same as trying to run it from Unity).
Seems to be related to a permission issue in web deployment code.

+ had to supply -r references

Successfully USED the following command:

Code (CSharp):

1. sudo mono UnityScript2CSharp.exe -v -u /Applications/Unity2017 -p /PATH/TO/PROJECT/FOLDER -r /PATH/TO/PROJECT/FOLDER/Library/ScriptAssemblies/Assembly-CSharp.dll

+ had to copy UnityEngineUI.dll from Unity Application folder (unpacked it and found the .dll) and added it to the .dlls in the tools .exe folder (where the conversion tool's other .dll dependencies reside).
I suspect this one might be project specific (perhaps NGUI related?).

The result was very good.
A day of cleanup and I was back on track.

Thank you @Vagaus!

 

I am also on 2017.3.0f3 (same as @ufot above).

I installed the package and ran it via the menu item, and got

Code (csharp):

1. UnityScript2CSharp was not able to convert your project:.
2.  
3. The version of Unity passed as the Unity Editor path is too old. Details: Could not find the module assembly folder.
4. Consider running converter with '-i' option.
5.  
6. UnityEngine.Debug:LogError(Object)
7. UnityScript2CSharpRunner:ShowConversionResultsInConsole(Int32) (at Assets/UnityScript2CSharp/Editor/UnityScript2CSharpRunner.cs:231)
8. UnityScript2CSharpRunner:RunConverter(String) (at Assets/UnityScript2CSharp/Editor/UnityScript2CSharpRunner.cs:210)
9. UnityScript2CSharpRunner:Convert() (at Assets/UnityScript2CSharp/Editor/UnityScript2CSharpRunner.cs:92

So I tried to follow @ufot's post above: I cloned the repository, and then downloaded and installed Visual Studio for Mac and built the project.

For me, the command had the same error whether I used sudo or not -- same as the error above when running it through the editor.

I captured and attached the output from two runs: First (cli_output.txt) was for running

mono ./UnityScript2CSharp/bin/Debug/UnityScript2CSharp.exe -v -u /Applications/Unity2017.0 -p /path/to/project -r /path/to/project/Library/ScriptAssemblies/Assembly-CSharp.dll

and then I added

-i

and captured that output in cli_output_i.txt

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Hi Adriano,

I notice that when I run a small test project, I can convert the entire project...but on a bigger project, I have to convert one script at a time. The issue is that I have a lot of prefabs with the js scripts attached, and if I have to convert one by one, they don't get replaced by the new c# version. Going through everything to replace the scripts and copy the public variables is extremely tedious. What is the reason for not being able to convert large projects? Is there a way to bypass this?

Also, isn't there a cleaner way to translate: gameObject.transform.position.x+1;
Four lines makes things a bit cluttered.

Thank you,
Jason