[mono.git] / man / mono.1

.\" 
.\" mono manual page.
.\" (C) 2003 Ximian, Inc. 
.\" (C) 2004-2005 Novell, Inc. 
.\" Author:
.\"   Miguel de Icaza (miguel@gnu.org)
.\"
.de Sp \" Vertical space (when we can't use .PP)
.if t .sp .5v
.if n .sp
..
.TH Mono "Mono 1.0"
.SH NAME
mono \- Mono's ECMA-CLI native code generator (Just-in-Time and Ahead-of-Time)
.SH SYNOPSIS
.PP
.B mono [options] file [arguments...]
.SH DESCRIPTION
\fImono\fP is a runtime implementation of the ECMA Common Language
Infrastructure.  This can be used to run ECMA and .NET applications.
.PP
The runtime contains a native code generator that transforms the
Common Intermediate Language into native code.
.PP
The code generator can operate in two modes: just in time compilation
(JIT) or ahead of time compilation (AOT).  Since code can be
dynamically loaded, the runtime environment and the JIT are always
present, even if code is compiled ahead of time.
.PP
The runtime loads ths specified
.I file
and optionally passes
the
.I arguments
to it.  The 
.I file
is an ECMA assembly.  They typically have a .exe or .dll extension.
.PP
The runtime provides a number of configuration options for running
applications, for developping and debugging, and for testing and
debugging the runtime itself.
.SH RUNTIME OPTIONS
The following options are available:
.TP
.I "--aot"
This option is used to precompile the CIL code in the specified
assembly to native code.  The generated code is stored in a file with
the extension .so.  This file will be automatically picked up by the
runtime when the assembly is executed.  
.Sp 
Ahead-of-Time compilation is most useful if you use it in combination
with the -O=all,-shared flag which enables all of the optimizations in
the code generator to be performed.  Some of those optimizations are
not practical for Just-in-Time compilation since they might be very
time consuming.
.Sp
Unlike the .NET Framework, Ahead-of-Time compilation will not generate
domain independent code: it generates the same code that the
Just-in-Time compiler would produce.   Since most applications use a
single domain, this is fine.   If you want to optimize the generated
code for use in multi-domain applications, consider using the
-O=shared flag.
.Sp
This pre-compiles the methods, but the original assembly is still
required to execute as this one contains the metadata and exception
information which is not availble on the generated file.  When
precompiling code, you might want to compile with all optimizations
(-O=all).  Pre-compiled code is position independent code.
.Sp
Pre compilation is just a mechanism to reduce startup time, and avoid
just-in-time compilation costs.  The original assembly must still be
present, as the metadata is contained there.
.TP
.I "--config filename"
Load the specified configuration file instead of the default one(s).
The default files are /etc/mono/config and ~/.mono/config or the file
specified in the MONO_CONFIG environment variable, if set.  See the
mono-config(5) man page for details on the format of this file.
.TP
.I "--desktop"
Configures the virtual machine to be better suited for desktop
applications.  Currently this sets the GC system to avoid expanding
the heap as much as possible at the expense of slowing down garbage
collection a bit.
.TP
.I "--help", "-h"
Displays usage instructions.
.TP
.I "--optimize=MODE", "-O=mode"
MODE is a comma separated list of optimizations.  They also allow
optimizations to be turned off by prefixing the optimization name with
a minus sign.
.Sp
The following optimizations are implemented:
.nf
             all        Turn on all optimizations
             peephole   Peephole postpass
             branch     Branch optimizations
             inline     Inline method calls
             cfold      Constant folding
             consprop   Constant propagation
             copyprop   Copy propagation
             deadce     Dead code elimination
             linears    Linear scan global reg allocation
             cmov       Conditional moves
             shared     Emit per-domain code
             sched      Instruction scheduling
             intrins    Intrinsic method implementations
             tailc      Tail recursion and tail calls
             loop       Loop related optimizations
             fcmov      Fast x86 FP compares
             leaf       Leaf procedures optimizations
             aot        Usage of Ahead Of Time compiled code
             precomp    Precompile all methods before executing Main
             abcrem     Array bound checks removal
             ssapre     SSA based Partial Redundancy Elimination
.fi
.Sp
For example, to enable all the optimization but dead code
elimination and inlining, you can use:
.nf
        -O=all,-deadce,-inline
.fi
.TP
.I "--security"
Activate the security manager (experimental feature in 1.1). This allows 
mono to support declarative security attributes (e.g. execution of, CAS 
or non-CAS, security demands). The security manager is OFF by default 
(experimental).
.TP
.I "--server"
Configures the virtual machine to be better suited for server
operations.  
.TP
.I "-V", "--version"
Prints JIT version information.


.SH DEVELOPMENT OPTIONS
The following options are used to help when developing a JITed application.
.TP
.I "--debug"
Turns on the debugging mode in the runtime.  If an assembly was
compiled with debugging information, it will produce line number
information for stack traces. 
.TP
.I "--profile[=profiler[:profiler_args]]"
Turns on profiling.  For more information about profiling applications
and code coverage see the sections "PROFILING" and "CODE COVERAGE"
below. 
.TP
.I "--trace[=expression]"
Shows method names as they are invoked.  By default all methods are
traced. 
.Sp
The trace can be customized to include or exclude methods, classes or
assemblies.  A trace expression is a comma separated list of targets,
each target can be prefixed with a minus sign to turn off a particular
target.  The words `program' and `all' have special meaning.
`program' refers to the main program being executed, and `all' means
all the method calls. 
.Sp
Assemblies are specified by their name, for example, to trace all
calls in the System assembly, use:
.nf

        mono --trace=System app.exe

.fi
Classes are specified with the T: prefix.  For example, to trace all
calls to the System.String class, use:
.nf

        mono --trace=T:System.String app.exe

.fi
And individual methods are referenced with the M: prefix, and the
standar method notation:
.nf

        mono --trace=M:System.Console:WriteLine app.exe

.fi
As previously noted, various rules can be specified at once:
.nf

        mono --trace=T:System.String,T:System.Random app.exe

.fi
You can exclude pieces, the next example traces calls to
System.String except for the System.String:Concat method.
.nf

        mono --trace=T:System.String,-M:System.String:Concat

.fi
Finally, namespaces can be specified using the N: prefix:
.nf

        mono --trace=N:System.Xml

.fi
.SH JIT MAINTAINER OPTIONS
The maintainer options are only used by those developing the runtime
itself, and not typically of interest to runtime users or developers.
.TP
.I "--compile name"
This compiles a method (namespace.name:methodname), this is used for
testing the compiler performance or to examine the output of the code
generator. 
.TP
.I "--compileall"
Compiles all the methods in an assembly.  This is used to test the
compiler performance or to examine the output of the code generator
.TP 
.I "--graph=TYPE METHOD"
This generates a postscript file with a graph with the details about
the specified method (namespace.name:methodname).  This requires `dot'
and ghostview to be installed (it expects Ghostview to be called
"gv"). 
.Sp
The following graphs are available:
.nf
          cfg        Control Flow Graph (CFG)
          dtree      Dominator Tree
          code       CFG showing code
          ssa        CFG showing code after SSA translation
          optcode    CFG showing code after IR optimizations
.fi
.Sp
Some graphs will only be available if certain optimizations are turned
on.
.TP
.I "--ncompile"
Instruct the runtime on the number of times that the method specified
by --compile (or all the methods if --compileall is used) to be
compiled.  This is used for testing the code generator performance. 
.TP
.I "-v", "--verbose"
Increases the verbosity level, each time it is listed, increases the
verbosity level to include more information (including, for example, 
a disassembly of the native code produced, code selector info etc.).
.TP
.I "--break method"
Inserts a breakpoint before the method whose name is `method'
(namespace.class:methodname).  Use `Main' as method name to insert a
breakpoint on the application's main method.
.TP
.I "--breakonex"
Inserts a breakpoint on exceptions.  This allows you to debug your
application with a native debugger when an exception is thrown.
.SH PROFILING
The mono runtime includes a profiler that can be used to explore
various performance related problems in your application.  The
profiler is activated by passing the --profile command line argument
to the Mono runtime, the format is:
.nf

        --profile[=profiler[:profiler_args]]

.fi
Mono has a built-in profiler called 'default' (and is also the default
if no arguments are specified), but developers can write custom
profilers, see the section "CUSTOM PROFILERS" for more details.
.PP
If a 
.I profiler 
is not specified, the default profiler is used.
.Sp
The 
.I profiler_args 
is a profiler-specific string of options for the profiler itself.
.Sp
The default profiler accepts the following options 'alloc' to profile
memory consumption by the application; 'time' to profile the time
spent on each routine and 'stat' to perform sample statistical
profiling.  If no options are provided the default is 'alloc,time'.
.Sp
For example:
.nf

        mono --profile program.exe

.fi
.Sp
That will run the program with the default profiler and will do time
and allocation profiling.
.Sp
.nf

        mono --profile=default:stat,alloc program.exe

.fi
Will do  sample statistical profiling and allocation profiling on
program.exe.
.SH PROFILERS
There are a number of external profilers that have been developed for
Mono, we will update this section to contain the profilers.
.PP
The Live Type profiler shows at every GC iteration all of the live
objects of a given type.   To install you must download the profiler
from Mono's SVN:
.nf
        svn co svn://svn.myrealbox.com/source/trunk/heap-prof
        cd heap-prof
        ./autogen
        make
        make install
.fi
.PP
To use the profiler, execute:
.nf
        mono --profile=desc-heap program.exe
.fi
.PP
The output of this profiler looks like this:
.nf
        Checkpoint at 102 for heap-resize
           System.MonoType : 708
           System.Threading.Thread : 352
           System.String : 3230
           System.String[] : 104
           Gnome.ModuleInfo : 112
           System.Object[] : 160
           System.Collections.Hashtable : 96
           System.Int32[] : 212
           System.Collections.Hashtable+Slot[] : 296
           System.Globalization.CultureInfo : 108
           System.Globalization.NumberFormatInfo : 144
.fi
.PP
The first line describes the iteration number for the GC, in this case
checkpoint 102.
.PP
Then on each line the type is displayed as well as the number of bytes
that are being consumed by live instances of this object.
.SH CUSTOM PROFILERS
Mono provides a mechanism for loading other profiling modules which in
the form of shared libraries.  These profiling modules can hook up to
various parts of the Mono runtime to gather information about the code
being executed.  
.PP
To use a third party profiler you must pass the name of the profiler
to Mono, like this:
.nf

        mono --profile=custom program.exe

.fi
.PP
In the above sample Mono will load the user defined profiler from the
shared library `mono-profiler-custom.so'.  This profiler module must
be on your dynamic linker library path.
.PP 
A list of other third party profilers is available from Mono's web
site (www.mono-project.com/Performance_Tips)
.PP
Custom profiles are written as shared libraries.  The shared library
must be called `mono-profiler-NAME.so' where `NAME' is the name of
your profiler.
.PP
For a sample of how to write your own custom profiler look in the
Mono source tree for in the samples/profiler.c.
.SH CODE COVERAGE
Mono ships with a code coverage module.  This module is activated by
using the Mono --profile=cov option.  The format is:
.I "--profile=cov[:assembly-name[/namespace]] test-suite.exe"
.PP
By default code coverage will default to all the assemblies loaded,
you can limit this by specifying the assembly name, for example to
perform code coverage in the routines of your program use, for example
the following command line limits the code coverage to routines in the
"demo" assembly:
.nf

        mono --profile=cov:demo demo.exe

.fi
.PP
Notice that the 
.I assembly-name
does not include the extension.
.PP
You can further restrict the code coverage output by specifying a
namespace:
.nf

        mono --profile=cov:demo/My.Utilities demo.exe

.fi
.PP
Which will only perform code coverage in the given assembly and
namespace.  
.PP
Typical output looks like this:
.nf

        Not covered: Class:.ctor ()
        Not covered: Class:A ()
        Not covered: Driver:.ctor ()
        Not covered: Driver:method ()
        Partial coverage: Driver:Main ()
                offset 0x000a

.fi
.PP
The offsets displayed are IL offsets.
.SH DEBUGGING
.PP
You can use the MONO_LOG_LEVEL and MONO_LOG_MASK environment variables
to get verbose debugging output about the execution of your
application within Mono.
.PP
The 
.I MONO_LOG_LEVEL
environment variable if set, the logging level is changed to the set
value. Possible values are "error", "critical", "warning", "message",
"info", "debug". The default value is "error". Messages with a logging
level greater then or equal to the log level will be printed to
stdout/stderr.
.PP
Use "info" to track the dynamic loading of assemblies.
.PP
.PP
Use the 
.I MONO_LOG_MASK
environment variable to limit the extent of the messages you get: 
If set, the log mask is changed to the set value. Possible values are
"asm" (assembly loader), "type", "dll" (native library loader), "gc"
(garbage collector), "cfg" (config file loader), "aot" (precompiler) and "all". 
The default value is "all". Changing the mask value allows you to display only 
messages for a certain component. You can use multiple masks by comma 
separating them. For example to see config file messages and assembly loader
messages set you mask to "asm,cfg".
.PP
The following is a common use to track down problems with P/Invoke:
.nf

        $ MONO_LOG_LEVEL="debug" MONO_LOG_MASK="dll" mono glue.exe

.fi
.PP
.SH SERIALIZATION
Mono's XML serialization engine by default will use a reflection-based
approach to serialize which might be slow for continous processing
(web service applications).  The serialization engine will determine
when a class must use a hand-tuned serializer based on a few
parameters and if needed it will produce a customized C# serializer
for your types at runtime.  This customized serializer then gets
dynamically loaded into your application.
.PP
You can control this with the MONO_XMLSERIALIZER_THS environment
variable.
.PP
The possible values are 
.B `no' 
to disable the use of a C# customized
serializer, or an integer that is the minimum number of uses before
the runtime will produce a custom serializer (0 will produce a
custom serializer on the first access, 50 will produce a serializer on
the 50th use).
.SH ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
.TP
.I "GC_DONT_GC"
Turns off the garbage collection in Mono.  This should be only used
for debugging purposes
.TP
.I "MONO_AOT_CACHE"
If set, this variable will instruct Mono to ahead-of-time compile new
assemblies on demand and store the result into a cache in
~/.mono/aot-cache. 
.TP
.I "MONO_ASPNET_NODELETE"
If set to any value, temporary source files generated by ASP.NET support
classes will not be removed. They will be kept in the user's temporary
directory.
.TP
.I "MONO_CFG_DIR"
If set, this variable overrides the default system configuration directory
($PREFIX/etc). It's used to locate machine.config file.
.TP
.I "MONO_CONFIG"
If set, this variable overrides the default runtime configuration file
($PREFIX/etc/mono/config). The --config command line options overrides the
environment variable.
.TP
.I "MONO_DEBUG"
If set, enables some features of the runtime useful for debugging.
This variable should contain a comma separated list of debugging options.
Currently, the following options are supported:
.RS
.ne 8
.TP
.I "keep-delegates"
This option will leak delegate trampolines that are no longer
referenced as to present the user with more information about a
delegate missuse.  Basically a delegate instance might be created,
passed to unmanaged code, and no references kept in managed code,
which will garbage collect the code.  With this option it is possible
to track down the source of the problems. 
.TP
.I "abort-on-sigsegv"
This option will make the runtime abort when it receives a SIGSEGV signal
while executing unmanaged (native) code. This is useful for debugging
problems when interfacing with native code.
.ne
.RE
.TP
.I "MONO_DISABLE_AIO"
If set, tells mono NOT to attempt using native asynchronous I/O services. In
that case, a default select/poll implementation is used. Currently only epoll()
is supported.
.TP
.I "MONO_EGD_SOCKET"
For platforms that do not otherwise have a way of obtaining random bytes
this can be set to the name of a file system socket on which an egd or
prngd daemon is listening.
.TP
.I "MONO_EXTERNAL_ENCODINGS"
If set, contains a colon-separated list of text encodings to try when
turning externally-generated text (e.g. command-line arguments or
filenames) into Unicode.  The encoding names come from the list
provided by iconv, and the special case "default_locale" which refers
to the current locale's default encoding.
.IP
When reading externally-generated text strings UTF-8 is tried first,
and then this list is tried in order with the first successful
conversion ending the search.  When writing external text (e.g. new
filenames or arguments to new processes) the first item in this list
is used, or UTF-8 if the environment variable is not set.
.TP
.I "MONO_GAC_PREFIX"
Provides a prefix the runtime uses to look for Global Assembly Caches.
Directories are separated by the platform path separator (colons on
unix). MONO_GAC_PREFIX should point to the top directory of a prefixed
install. Or to the directory provided in the gacutil /gacdir command. Example:
.B /home/username/.mono:/usr/local/mono/
.TP
.I "MONO_LOG_LEVEL"
The logging level, possible values are `error', `critical', `warning',
`message', `info' and `debug'.  See the DEBUGGING section for more
details.
.TP
.I "MONO_LOG_MASK"
Controls the domain of the Mono runtime that logging will apply to. 
If set, the log mask is changed to the set value. Possible values are
"asm" (assembly loader), "type", "dll" (native library loader), "gc"
(garbage collector), "cfg" (config file loader), "aot" (precompiler) and "all". 
The default value is "all". Changing the mask value allows you to display only 
messages for a certain component. You can use multiple masks by comma 
separating them. For example to see config file messages and assembly loader
messages set you mask to "asm,cfg".
.TP
.I "MONO_MANAGED_WATCHER"
If set to any value, System.IO.FileSystemWatcher will use the default
managed implementation (slow). If unset, mono will try to use FAM under
Unix systems and native API calls on Windows, falling back to the
managed implementation on error.
.TP
.I "MONO_PATH"
Provides a search path to the runtime where to look for library files.
Directories are separated by the platform path separator (colons on unix). Example:
.B /home/username/lib:/usr/local/mono/lib
.TP
.I "MONO_RTC"
Experimental RTC support in the statistical profiler: if the user has
the permission, more accurate statistics are gathered.  The MONO_RTC
value must be restricted to what the linux rtc allows: power of two
from 64 to 8192 Hz. To enable higher frequencies like 4096 Hz, run as root:
.nf

        echo 4096 > /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq

.fi
.Sp
For example:
.nf

        MONO_RTC=4096 mono --profiler=default:stat program.exe

.fi
.TP
.I "MONO_NO_TLS"
Disable inlining of thread local accesses. Try setting this if you get a segfault
early on in the execution of mono.
.TP 
.I "MONO_SHARED_DIR"
If set its the directory where the ".wapi" handle state is stored.
This is the directory where the Windows I/O Emulation layer stores its
shared state data (files, events, mutexes, pipes).  By default Mono
will store the ".wapi" directory in the users's home directory.
.TP
.I "MONO_THREADS_PER_CPU"
The maximum number of threads in the general threadpool will be
20 + (MONO_THREADS_PER_CPU * number of CPUs). The default value for this
variable is 5.
.TP
.I "MONO_TRACE"
Used for runtime tracing of method calls. The format of the comma separated
trace options is:
.nf

        [-]M:method name
        [-]N:namespace
        [-]T:class name
        [-]all
        [-]program
        disabled                Trace output off upon start.

.fi
You can toggle trace output on/off sending a SIGUSR2 signal to the program.
.TP
.I "MONO_TRACE_LISTENER"
If set, enables the System.Diagnostics.DefaultTraceListener, which will 
print the output of the System.Diagnostics Trace and Debug classes.  
It can be set to a filename, and to Console.Out or Console.Error to display
output to standard output or standard error, respectively. If it's set to
Console.Out or Console.Error you can append an optional prefix that will
be used when writing messages like this: Console.Error:MyProgramName.
See the System.Diagnostics.DefaultTraceListener documentation for more
information.
.TP
.I "MONO_XMLSERIALIZER_THS"
Controls the threshold for the XmlSerializer to produce a custom
serializer for a given class instead of using the Reflection-based
interpreter.  The possible values are `no' to disable the use of a
custom serializer or a number to indicate when the XmlSerializer
should start serializing.   The default value is 50, which means that
the a custom serializer will be produced on the 50th use.
.SH FILES
On Unix assemblies are loaded from the installation lib directory.  If you set
`prefix' to /usr, the assemblies will be located in /usr/lib.  On
Windows, the assemblies are loaded from the directory where mono and
mint live.
.PP
~/.mono/aot-cache
.PP
The directory for the ahead-of-time compiler demand creation
assemblies are located. 
.PP
/etc/mono/config, ~/.mono/config
.PP
Mono runtime configuration file.  See the mono-config(5) manual page
for more information.
.PP
~/.config/.mono/certs, /usr/share/.mono/certs
.PP
Contains Mono certificate stores for users / machine. See the certmgr(1) 
manual page for more information on managing certificate stores.
.PP
~/.config/.mono/keypairs, /usr/share/.mono/keypairs
.PP
Contains Mono cryptographic keypairs for users / machine. They can be 
accessed by using a CspParameters object with DSACryptoServiceProvider
and RSACryptoServiceProvider classes.
.PP
~/.config/.isolatedstorage, ~/.local/share/.isolatedstorage, /usr/share/.isolatedstorage
.PP
Contains Mono isolated storage for non-roaming users, roaming users and 
local machine. Isolated storage can be accessed using the classes from 
the System.IO.IsolatedStorage namespace.
.SH MAILING LISTS
Mailing lists are listed at the
http://www.mono-project.com/Mailing_Lists
.SH WEB SITE
http://www.mono-project.com
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR mcs(1), mint(1), monodis(1), mono-config(5), certmgr(1).
.PP
For ASP.NET-related documentation, see the xsp(1) manual page