.\" .\" 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 "--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 "-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]]" Instructs the runtime to collect profiling information about execution times and memory allocation, and dump it at the end of the execution. If a profiler is not specified, the default profiler is used. .Sp Mono has a built-in profiler called `default' (and is also the default if no arguments are specified), but developers can write custom profilers as shared libraries. The shared library must be called `mono-profiler-NAME.so' where `NAME' is the name of your profiler. .Sp For a sample of the custom profilers look in the Mono source tree for in the samples/profiler.c. .Sp The .I profiler_args is a profiler-specific string of options for the profiler itself. .Sp The default profiler is called `default' and it accepts `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. .TP .nf mono --profile=custom program.exe .fi .Sp In the above sample Mono will load the user defined profiler from the shared library `mono-profiler-custom.so'. .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. .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 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. Currently this enables two features: stack traces when interrupting the process from the shell; Visible error messages on assembly loading and also to track problems with delegates that are released, but a reference is kept in unmanaged code. .TP The stack tracing option makes the runtime display the stack traces for all the threads running and exit when mono is interrupted (Ctrl-C) and print some additional messages on error conditions. It may not exit cleanly. Use at your own risk. .TP Also, 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 "MONO_DISABLE_AIO" If set, tells mono NOT to attempt using native asynchronous I/O services. In that case, the threadpool is used for asynchronous I/O on files and sockets. .TP .I "MONO_DISABLE_SHM" If this variable is set, it disables the shared memory part of the Windows I/O Emulation layer, and handles (files, events, mutexes, pipes) will not be shared across processes. Process creation is also disabled. This option is only available on Unix. .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" Sets the maximum number of threads in the threadpool per CPU. The default is 50 for non-windows systems and 25 for windows. .TP .I "MONO_TRACE" 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. 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 Visit http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-list for details. .SH WEB SITE Visit: http://www.mono-project.com for details .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