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 Ahead-of-Time compilation is most useful if you use it in combination
51 with the -O=all,-shared flag which enables all of the optimizations in
52 the code generator to be performed. Some of those optimizations are
53 not practical for Just-in-Time compilation since they might be very
56 Unlike the .NET Framework, Ahead-of-Time compilation will not generate
57 domain independent code: it generates the same code that the
58 Just-in-Time compiler would produce. Since most applications use a
59 single domain, this is fine. If you want to optimize the generated
60 code for use in multi-domain applications, consider using the
63 This pre-compiles the methods, but the original assembly is still
64 required to execute as this one contains the metadata and exception
65 information which is not availble on the generated file. When
66 precompiling code, you might want to compile with all optimizations
67 (-O=all). Pre-compiled code is position independent code.
69 Pre compilation is just a mechanism to reduce startup time, and avoid
70 just-in-time compilation costs. The original assembly must still be
71 present, as the metadata is contained there.
73 .I "--config filename"
74 Load the specified configuration file instead of the default one(s).
75 The default files are /etc/mono/config and ~/.mono/config or the file
76 specified in the MONO_CONFIG environment variable, if set. See the
77 mono-config(5) man page for details on the format of this file.
80 Displays usage instructions.
82 .I "--optimize=MODE", "-O=mode"
83 MODE is a comma separated list of optimizations. They also allow
84 optimizations to be turned off by prefixing the optimization name with
87 The following optimizations are implemented:
89 all Turn on all optimizations
90 peephole Peephole postpass
91 branch Branch optimizations
92 inline Inline method calls
93 cfold Constant folding
94 consprop Constant propagation
95 copyprop Copy propagation
96 deadce Dead code elimination
97 linears Linear scan global reg allocation
98 cmov Conditional moves
99 shared Emit per-domain code
100 sched Instruction scheduling
101 intrins Intrinsic method implementations
102 tailc Tail recursion and tail calls
103 loop Loop related optimizations
104 leaf Leaf procedures optimizations
105 profile Use profiling information
108 For example, to enable all the optimization but dead code
109 elimination and inlining, you can use:
111 -O=all,-deadce,-inline
115 Prints JIT version information.
118 .SH DEVELOPMENT OPTIONS
119 The following options are used to help when developing a JITed application.
122 Turns on the debugging mode in the runtime. If an assembly was
123 compiled with debugging information, it will produce line number
124 information for stack traces.
126 .I "--profile[=profiler[:profiler_args]]"
127 Instructs the runtime to collect profiling information about execution
128 times and memory allocation, and dump it at the end of the execution.
129 If a profiler is not specified, the default profiler is used. profiler_args
130 is a profiler-specific string of options for the profiler itself.
132 The default profiler accepts -time and -alloc to options to disable
133 the time profiling or the memory allocation profilng.
134 .SH JIT MAINTAINER OPTIONS
135 The maintainer options are only used by those developing the runtime
136 itself, and not typically of interest to runtime users or developers.
139 This compiles a method (namespace.name:methodname), this is used for
140 testing the compiler performance or to examine the output of the code
144 Compiles all the methods in an assembly. This is used to test the
145 compiler performance or to examine the output of the code generator
147 .I "--graph=TYPE METHOD"
148 This generates a postscript file with a graph with the details about
149 the specified method (namespace.name:methodname). This requires `dot'
150 and ghostview to be installed (it expects Ghostview to be called
153 The following graphs are available:
155 cfg Control Flow Graph (CFG)
157 code CFG showing code
158 ssa CFG showing code after SSA translation
159 optcode CFG showing code after IR optimizations
162 Some graphs will only be available if certain optimizations are turned
166 Instruct the runtime on the number of times that the method specified
167 by --compile (or all the methods if --compileall is used) to be
168 compiled. This is used for testing the code generator performance.
171 Increases the verbosity level, each time it is listed, increases the
172 verbosity level to include more information (including, for example,
173 a disassembly of the native code produced, code selector info etc.).
176 Inserts a breakpoint before the method whose name is `method'
177 (namespace.class:methodname). Use `Main' as method name to insert a
178 breakpoint on the application's main method.
181 Inserts a breakpoint on exceptions. This allows you to debug your
182 application with a native debugger when an exception is thrown.
184 .I "--trace[=expression]"
185 Shows method names as they are invoked. By default all methods are
188 The trace can be customized to include or exclude methods, classes or
189 assemblies. A trace expression is a comma separated list of targets,
190 each target can be prefixed with a minus sign to turn off a particular
191 target. The words `program' and `all' have special meaning.
192 `program' refers to the main program being executed, and `all' means
193 all the method calls.
195 Assemblies are specified by their name, for example, to trace all
196 calls in the System assembly, use:
199 mono --trace=System app.exe
202 Classes are specified with the T: prefix. For example, to trace all
203 calls to the System.String class, use:
206 mono --trace=T:System.String app.exe
209 And individual methods are referenced with the M: prefix, and the
210 standar method notation:
213 mono --trace=M:System.Console:WriteLine app.exe
216 As previously noted, various rules can be specified at once:
219 mono --trace=T:System.String,T:System.Random app.exe
222 You can exclude pieces, the next example traces calls to
223 System.String except for the System.String:Concat method.
226 mono --trace=T:System.String,-M:System.String:Concat
229 Finally, namespaces can be specified using the N: prefix:
232 mono --trace=N:System.Xml
237 If you are interested in debugging P/Invoke problems with your
238 application, you might want to use:
240 $ MONO_LOG_LEVEL="debug" MONO_LOG_MASK="dll" mono glue.exe
243 Mono's XML serialization engine by default will use a reflection-based
244 approach to serialize which might be slow for continous processing
245 (web service applications). The serialization engine will determine
246 when a class must use a hand-tuned serializer based on a few
247 parameters and if needed it will produce a customized C# serializer
248 for your types at runtime. This customized serializer then gets
249 dynamically loaded into your application.
251 You can control this with the MONO_XMLSERIALIZER_THS environment
254 The possible values are `no' to disable the use of a C# customized
255 serializer, or an integer that is the minimum number of uses before
256 the runtime will produce a custom serializer (0 will produce a
257 custom serializer on the first access, 50 will produce a serializer on
259 .SH ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
262 Turns off the garbage collection in Mono. This should be only used
263 for debugging purposes
266 If set, this variable will instruct Mono to ahead-of-time compile new
267 assemblies on demand and store the result into a cache in
270 .I "MONO_ASPNET_NODELETE"
271 If set to any value, temporary source files generated by ASP.NET support
272 classes will not be removed. They will be kept in the user's temporary
276 If set, this variable overrides the default system configuration directory
277 ($PREFIX/etc). It's used to locate machine.config file.
280 If set, this variable overrides the default runtime configuration file
281 ($PREFIX/etc/mono/config). The --config command line options overrides the
282 environment variable.
285 If set, enables some features of the runtime useful for debugging.
286 It makes the runtime display the stack traces for all the threads
287 running and exit when mono is interrupted (Ctrl-C) and print some
288 additional messages on error conditions. It may not exit cleanly. Use at
291 .I "MONO_DISABLE_AIO"
292 If set, tells mono NOT to attempt using native asynchronous I/O services. In
293 that case, the threadpool is used for asynchronous I/O on files and sockets.
295 .I "MONO_DISABLE_SHM"
296 If this variable is set, it disables the shared memory part of the
297 Windows I/O Emulation layer, and handles (files, events, mutexes,
298 pipes) will not be shared across processes. Process creation is also
299 disabled. This option is only available on Unix.
302 For platforms that do not otherwise have a way of obtaining random bytes
303 this can be set to the name of a file system socket on which an egd or
304 prngd daemon is listening.
306 .I "MONO_EXTERNAL_ENCODINGS"
307 If set, contains a colon-separated list of text encodings to try when
308 turning externally-generated text (e.g. command-line arguments or
309 filenames) into Unicode. The encoding names come from the list
310 provided by iconv, and the special case "default_locale" which refers
311 to the current locale's default encoding.
313 When reading externally-generated text strings UTF-8 is tried first,
314 and then this list is tried in order with the first successful
315 conversion ending the search. When writing external text (e.g. new
316 filenames or arguments to new processes) the first item in this list
317 is used, or UTF-8 if the environment variable is not set.
320 Provides a prefix the runtime uses to look for Global Assembly Caches.
321 Directories are separated by the platform path separator (colons on
322 unix). MONO_GAC_PREFIX should point to the top directory of a prefixed
323 install. Or to the directory provided in the gacutil /gacdir command. Example:
324 .B /home/username/.mono:/usr/local/mono/
327 If set, the logging level is changed to the set value. Possible values
328 are "error", "critical", "warning", "message", "info", "debug". The
329 default value is "error". Messages with a logging level greater then
330 or equal to the log level will be printed to stdout/stderr.
332 Use info to track the dynamic loading of assemblies.
335 If set, the log mask is changed to the set value. Possible values are
336 "asm" (assembly loader), "type", "dll" (native library loader), "gc"
337 (garbage collector), "cfg" (config file loader), "aot" (precompiler), "all".
338 The default value is "all". Changing the mask value allows you to display only
339 messages for a certain component. You can use multiple masks by comma
340 separating them. For example to see config file messages and assembly loader
341 messages set you mask to "asm,cfg".
343 .I "MONO_MANAGED_WATCHER"
344 If set to any value, System.IO.FileSystemWatcher will use the default
345 managed implementation (slow). If unset, mono will try to use FAM under
346 Unix systems and native API calls on Windows, falling back to the
347 managed implementation on error.
349 .I "MONO_THREADS_PER_CPU"
350 Sets the maximum number of threads in the threadpool per CPU. The default is
351 50 for non-windows systems and 25 for windows.
354 If set, enables the System.Diagnostics.DefaultTraceListener, which will
355 print the output of the System.Diagnostics Trace and Debug classes.
356 It can be set to a filename, and to Console.Out or Console.Error to display
357 output to standard output or standard error, respectively.
358 See the System.Diagnostics.DefaultTraceListener documentation for more
362 If set its the directory where the ".wapi" handle state is stored.
363 This is the directory where the Windows I/O Emulation layer stores its
364 shared state data (files, events, mutexes, pipes). By default Mono
365 will store the ".wapi" directory in the users's home directory.
368 Provides a search path to the runtime where to look for library files.
369 Directories are separated by the platform path separator (colons on unix). Example:
370 .B /home/username/lib:/usr/local/mono/lib
372 .I "MONO_XMLSERIALIZER_THS"
373 Controls the threshold for the XmlSerializer to produce a custom
374 serializer for a given class instead of using the Reflection-based
375 interpreter. The possible values are `no' to disable the use of a
376 custom serializer or a number to indicate when the XmlSerializer
377 should start serializing. The default value is 50, which means that
378 the a custom serializer will be produced on the 50th use.
380 On Unix assemblies are loaded from the installation lib directory. If you set
381 `prefix' to /usr, the assemblies will be located in /usr/lib. On
382 Windows, the assemblies are loaded from the directory where mono and
387 The directory for the ahead-of-time compiler demand creation
388 assemblies are located.
390 /etc/mono/config, ~/.mono/config
392 Mono runtime configuration file. See the mono-config(5) manual page
393 for more information.
395 ~/.config/.mono/certs
397 Contains Mono certificate stores. See the certmgr(1) manual page for
400 Visit http://mail.ximian.com/mailman/mono-list for details.
402 Visit: http://www.go-mono.com for details
404 .BR mcs(1), mint(1), monodis(1), mono-config(5), certmgr(1).
406 For ASP.NET-related documentation, see the xsp(1) manual page