3 .\" (C) 2003 Ximian, Inc.
5 .\" Miguel de Icaza (miguel@gnu.org)
7 .de Sp \" Vertical space (when we can't use .PP)
13 mono \- Mono's ECMA-CLI native code generator (Just-in-Time and Ahead-of-Time)
16 .B mono [options] file [arguments...]
18 \fImono\fP is a runtime implementation of the ECMA Common Language
19 Infrastructure. This can be used to run ECMA and .NET applications.
21 The runtime contains a native code generator that transforms the
22 Common Intermediate Language into native code.
24 The code generator can operate in two modes: just in time compilation
25 (JIT) or ahead of time compilation (AOT). Since code can be
26 dynamically loaded, the runtime environment and the JIT are always
27 present, even if code is compiled ahead of time.
29 The runtime loads ths specified
36 is an ECMA assembly. They typically have a .exe or .dll extension.
38 The runtime provides a number of configuration options for running
39 applications, for developping and debugging, and for testing and
40 debugging the runtime itself.
42 The following options are available:
45 This option is used to precompile the CIL code in the specified
46 assembly to native code. The generated code is stored in a file with
47 the extension .so. This file will be automatically picked up by the
48 runtime when the assembly is executed.
50 This pre-compiles the methods, but the original assembly is still
51 required to execute as this one contains the metadata and exception
52 information which is not availble on the generated file. When
53 precompiling code, you might want to compile with all optimizations
54 (-O=all). Pre-compiled code is position independent code.
56 Pre compilation is just a mechanism to reduce startup time, and avoid
57 just-in-time compilation costs. The original assembly must still be
58 present, as the metadata is contained there.
60 .I "--config filename"
61 Load the specified configuration file instead of the default one(s).
62 The default files are /etc/mono/config and ~/.mono/config or the file
63 specified in the MONO_CONFIG environment variable, if set. See the
64 mono-config(5) man page for details on the format of this file.
67 Displays usage instructions.
69 .I "--optimize=MODE", "-O=mode"
70 MODE is a comma separated list of optimizations. They also allow
71 optimizations to be turned off by prefixing the optimization name with
74 The following optimizations are implemented:
76 all Turn on all optimizations
77 peephole Peephole postpass
78 branch Branch optimizations
79 inline Inline method calls
80 cfold Constant folding
81 consprop Constant propagation
82 copyprop Copy propagation
83 deadce Dead code elimination
84 linears Linear scan global reg allocation
85 cmov Conditional moves
86 shared Emit per-domain code
87 sched Instruction scheduling
88 intrins Intrinsic method implementations
89 tailc Tail recursion and tail calls
90 loop Loop related optimizations
91 leaf Leaf procedures optimizations
92 profile Use profiling information
95 For example, to enable all the optimization but dead code
96 elimination and inlining, you can use:
98 -O=all,-deadce,-inline
102 Prints JIT version information.
105 .SH DEVELOPMENT OPTIONS
106 The following options are used to help when developing a JITed application.
109 Turns on the debugging mode in the runtime. If an assembly was
110 compiled with debugging information, it will produce line number
111 information for stack traces.
113 .I "--profile[=profiler[:profiler_args]]"
114 Instructs the runtime to collect profiling information about execution
115 times and memory allocation, and dump it at the end of the execution.
116 If a profiler is not specified, the default profiler is used. profiler_args
117 is a profiler-specific string of options for the profiler itself.
119 The default profiler accepts -time and -alloc to options to disable
120 the time profiling or the memory allocation profilng.
121 .SH JIT MAINTAINER OPTIONS
122 The maintainer options are only used by those developing the runtime
123 itself, and not typically of interest to runtime users or developers.
126 This compiles a method (namespace.name:methodname), this is used for
127 testing the compiler performance or to examine the output of the code
131 Compiles all the methods in an assembly. This is used to test the
132 compiler performance or to examine the output of the code generator
134 .I "--graph=TYPE METHOD"
135 This generates a postscript file with a graph with the details about
136 the specified method (namespace.name:methodname). This requires `dot'
137 and ghostview to be installed (it expects Ghostview to be called
140 The following graphs are available:
142 cfg Control Flow Graph (CFG)
144 code CFG showing code
145 ssa CFG showing code after SSA translation
146 optcode CFG showing code after IR optimizations
149 Some graphs will only be available if certain optimizations are turned
153 Instruct the runtime on the number of times that the method specified
154 by --compile (or all the methods if --compileall is used) to be
155 compiled. This is used for testing the code generator performance.
158 Increases the verbosity level, each time it is listed, increases the
159 verbosity level to include more information (including, for example,
160 a disassembly of the native code produced, code selector info etc.).
163 Inserts a breakpoint before the method whose name is `method'
164 (namespace.class:methodname). Use `Main' as method name to insert a
165 breakpoint on the application's main method.
168 Inserts a breakpoint on exceptions. This allows you to debug your
169 application with a native debugger when an exception is thrown.
171 .I "--trace[=expression]"
172 Shows method names as they are invoked. By default all methods are
175 The trace can be customized to include or exclude methods, classes or
176 assemblies. A trace expression is a comma separated list of targets,
177 each target can be prefixed with a minus sign to turn off a particular
178 target. The words `program' and `all' have special meaning.
179 `program' refers to the main program being executed, and `all' means
180 all the method calls.
182 Assemblies are specified by their name, for example, to trace all
183 calls in the System assembly, use:
185 mono --trace=System app.exe
187 Classes are specified with the T: prefix. For example, to trace all
188 calls to the System.String class, use:
190 mono --trace=T:System.String app.exe
192 And individual methods are referenced with the M: prefix, and the
193 standar method notation:
195 mono --trace=M:System.Console.WriteLine app.exe
197 As previously noted, various rules can be specified at once:
199 mono --trace=T:System.String,T:System.Random app.exe
201 You can exclude pieces, the next example traces calls to
202 System.String except for the System.String:Concat method.
204 mono --trace=T:System.String,-M:System.String:Concat
206 Finally, namespaces can be specified using the N: prefix:
208 mono --trace=N:System.Xml
210 .SH ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
213 Turns off the garbage collection in Mono. This should be only used
214 for debugging purposes
217 Provides a search path to the runtime where to look for library files.
218 Directories are separated by the platform path separator (colons on unix). Example:
219 .B /home/username/lib:/usr/local/mono/lib
221 .I "MONO_DISABLE_SHM"
222 If this variable is set, it disables the shared memory part of the
223 Windows I/O Emulation layer, and handles (files, events, mutexes,
224 pipes) will not be shared across processes. Process creation is also
225 disabled. This option is only available on Unix.
228 If set, this variable overrides the default system configuration directory
229 ($PREFIX/etc). It's used to locate machine.config file.
232 If set, this variable overrides the default runtime configuration file
233 ($PREFIX/etc/mono/config). The --config command line options overrides the
234 environment variable.
237 If set, enables some features of the runtime useful for debugging.
239 Currently it only makes the runtime display the stack traces for all the
240 threads running and exit. It may not exit cleanly. Use at your own risk.
242 .I "MONO_EXTERNAL_ENCODINGS"
243 If set, contains a colon-separated list of text encodings to try when
244 turning externally-generated text (e.g. command-line arguments or
245 filenames) into unicode. The encoding names come from the list
246 provided by iconv, and the special case "default_locale" which refers
247 to the current locale's default encoding.
249 When reading externally-generated text strings UTF-8 is tried first,
250 and then this list is tried in order with the first successful
251 conversion ending the search. When writing external text (e.g. new
252 filenames or arguments to new processes) the first item in this list
253 is used, or UTF-8 if the environment variable is not set.
255 On Unix assemblies are loaded from the installation lib directory. If you set
256 `prefix' to /usr, the assemblies will be located in /usr/lib. On
257 Windows, the assemblies are loaded from the directory where mono and
260 /etc/mono/config, ~/.mono/config
262 Mono runtime configuration file. See the mono-config(5) manual page
263 for more information.
265 Visit http://mail.ximian.com/mailman/mono-list for details.
267 Visit: http://www.go-mono.com for details
269 .BR mcs(1), mint(1), monodis(1), mono-config(5)