Provided by: mono-devel_6.8.0.105+dfsg-3.6ubuntu2_all bug

NAME

       mkbundle, mkbundle2 - Creates a bundled executable.

SYNOPSIS

       mkbundle [options] assembly1 [assembly2 ...]

DESCRIPTION

       mkbundle  generates an executable program that will contain static copies of the assemblies listed on the
       command line.  By default only the assemblies specified in the command  line  will  be  included  in  the
       bundle.   To  automatically  include  all  of  the dependencies referenced, use the "--deps" command line
       option.

       There are two modes of operation, one uses an existing Mono binary or a server-hosted  list  of  binaries
       and is enabled when you use either the --cross, --sdk or the --runtime command line options.

       An  older  mechanism  creates  a  small  C stub that links against the libmono library to produce a self-
       contained executable and requires a C compiler.   It is described in the "OLD EMBEDDING" section below.

       For example, to create a bundle for hello world, use the following command:

            $ mkbundle -o hello --simple hello.exe

       You can configure options to be passed to the Mono runtime directly into your executable, for  this,  use
       the  --options  flag.   For example, the following disables inlining, by passing the "-O=-inline" command
       line option to the embedded executable:

            $ mkbundle -o hello --options -O=-inline --simple hello.exe

       The simple version allows for cross-compiling, this requires a Mono
       runtime to be installed in the ~/.mono/targets/TARGET/mono to be
       available.   You can use the "--local-targets" to list all available
       targets, and the "--cross" argument to specify the target, like this:

            $ mkbundle --local-targets
            Available targets:
                 default   - Current System Mono
                 4.4.0-macosx-x86
                 4.4.0-debian-8-arm64
            $ mkbundle --cross 4.4.0-debian-8-powerpc hello.exe -o hello-debian

       The above will bundle your native library into hello-debian for a Debian 8 system running  on  a  PowerPC
       machine.

       We  provide  pre-packages  binaries for Mono for various architectures, which allow you to cross compile,
       use the --list-targets to get a list of all  targets  supported,  and  use  the  --fetch-target  flag  to
       retrieve a target that you do not have installed, like this:

            $ mkbundle --list-targets
            Cross-compilation targets available:
            4.4.0-linux-libc2.13-amd64
            4.4.0-linux-libc2.13-armel
            4.4.0-linux-libc2.13-armhf
            4.4.0-linux-libc2.13-i386
            4.4.0-macos-10.7-amd64
            4.4.0-macos-10.7-i386
            4.4.2-linux-libc2.13-amd64
            4.4.2-linux-libc2.13-armel
            4.4.2-linux-libc2.13-armhf
            4.4.2-linux-libc2.13-i386
            4.4.2-macos-10.7-amd64
            4.4.2-macos-10.7-i386

            $ mkbundle --fetch-target 4.4.2-macos-10.7-i386

       And then you can produce a binary that will run on 32-bit Mono on MacOS:

            $ mkbundle --cross 4.4.2-macos-10.7-i386 hello.exe -o hello-macos

       Downloaded targets are stored ~/.mono/targets directory.

OPTIONS

       --config FILE
              Specifies  that  a  DLLMAP  Mono  config  file  must be bundled as well.   In the simple and cross
              compiler modes, if no config file is specified the one for the current target  is  picked  (either
              the  system  one  in  the case of the simple mode, or the one that came from the cross compilation
              target for the cross compiling mode).

       --config-dir DIR
              When passed, DIR will be set for the MONO_CFG_DIR environment variable

       --cross target
              Use this to request mkbundle generate a cross-compiled  binary.   It  Creates  a  bundle  for  the
              specified  target  platform.   The target must be a directory in ~/.mono/targets/ that contains an
              SDK installation as produced by the  mono-package-runtime  tool.   You  can  get  a  list  of  the
              precompiled versions of the runtime using --list-targets and you can fetch a specific target using
              the --fetch-target command line option.

              This  flag  is  mutually exclusive with --sdk which is used to specify an absolute path to resolve
              the Mono runtime from and the --runtime option which is used  to  manually  construct  the  cross-
              platform package.

       --deps This  option will bundle all of the referenced assemblies for the assemblies listed on the command
              line option.  This is useful to distribute a self-contained image.

       --env KEY=VALUE
              Use this to hardcode an environment variable at runtime for KEY to be mapped to VALUE.    This  is
              useful  in  scenarios where you want to enable certain Mono runtime configuration options that are
              controlled by environment variables.

       --fetch-target target
              Downloads a precompiled runtime for the specified target from the Mono distribution site.

       --i18n encoding
              Specified which encoding tables to  ship  with  the  executable.    By  default,  Mono  ships  the
              supporting  I18N.dll  assembly  and the I18N.West.dll assembly.   If your application will use the
              System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding with encodings other than the West encodings, you should  specify
              them here.

              You  can use the none parameter to request that no implicit encodings should be bundled, including
              the supporting I18N.dll, use this option if you have ran a linker on your own.

              You can use the all flag to bundle all available encodings.

              Or you can use a comma delimited list of  the  workds  CJK,  MidWest,  Other,  Rare  and  West  to
              specificy which encoding assemblies to distribute.

       -L path
              Adds  the  `path'  do  the search list for assemblies.  The rules are the same as for the compiler
              -lib: or -L flags.

       --library [LIB,]PATH
              Embeds the dynamic library file pointed to by `PATH' and optionally give it the  name  `LIB'  into
              the  bundled  executable.    This is used to ship native library dependencies that are unpacked at
              startup and loaded from the runtime. Multiple libraries should be specified in  dependency  order,
              where later ones on the command line depend on earlier ones.

       --lists-targets
              Lists  all  of  the available local cross compilation targets available as precompiled binaries on
              the Mono distribution server.

       --local-targets
              Lists all of the available local cross compilation targets.

       --cil-strip PATH
              Provides a CIL stripper that mkbundle will use if able to.  The intended use  is  to  help  reduce
              file size on AOT.

       --in-tree path/to/mono/source/root
              Provides  mkbundle  with  a  mono  source  repository from which to pull the necessary headers for
              compilation.  This allows mkbundle to run out of the project's source  tree,  useful  for  working
              with multiple runtimes and for testing without installing.

       --managed-linker PATH
              Provides mkbundle access to a managed linker to preprocess the assemblies.

       --machine-config FILE
              Uses  the given FILE as the machine.config file for the generated application.  The machine config
              contains an XML file that is used by  System.Configuration  APIs  to  configure  the  .NET  stack.
              Typically this is $prefix/etc/mono/4.5/machine.config.

              If  you  want to disable this automatic bundling, you can use the --no-machine-config flag. In the
              simple and cross compiler modes, if no machine.config file is specified the one  for  the  current
              target  is picked (either the system one in the case of the simple mode, or the one that came from
              the cross compilation target for the cross compiling mode).

       --no-config
              In simple or cross compiling mode, this prevents mkbundle from  automatically  bundling  a  config
              file.

       --nodeps
              This  is the default: mkbundle will only include the assemblies that were specified on the command
              line to reduce the size of the resulting image created.

       --no-machine-config
              In simple  or  cross  compiling  mode,  this  prevents  mkbundle  from  automatically  bundling  a
              machine.config file.

       -o filename
              Places  the  output  on  `out'.  If the flag -c is specified, this is the C host program.  If not,
              this contains the resulting executable.

       --options OPTS
              Since the resulting executable will be treated as a standalone program, you can use this option to
              pass configuration options to the Mono runtime and  bake  those  into  the  resulting  executable.
              These options are specified as OPTS.

              You  can  use  the above to configure options that you would typically pass on the command line to
              Mono, before the main program is executed.

              Additionally, users of  your  binary  can  still  configure  their  own  options  by  setting  the
              MONO_ENV_OPTIONS environment variable.

       --sdk SDK_PATH
              Use this flag to specify a path from which mkbundle will resolve the Mono SDK from.   The SDK path
              should  be  the  prefix path that you used to configure a Mono installation.   And would typically
              contain files lik SDK_PATH/bin/mono , SDK_PATH/lib/mono/4.5 and so on.

              When this flag is specified, mkbundle will resolve the runtime, the framework libraries, unmanaged
              resources and configuration files from the files located in this directory.

              This flag is mutually exlusive with --cross

       --target-server SERVER
              By default the mkbundle tool will download from a Mono server the target runtimes, you can specify
              a different server to provide cross-compiled runtimes.

       --mono-api-struct-path FILE
              FILE points to a file with the definition  of  the  BundleMonoAPI  structure  which  contains  the
              required pointers to various Mono API functions used throughout the generated code. This mechanism
              is  meant  to  be  used  by  third  parties  which embed the Mono runtime and dynamically load and
              initialize it as part of the application startup,  in  which  case  the  Mono  APIs  will  not  be
              available  for  the shared library loader and the bundle will fail to work (one example of such an
              embedding third party is Xamarin.Android).

              After providing the definition FILE, the embedder must call the  void  initialize_mono_api  (const
              BundleMonoAPI  *info)  function found in the generated code before calling void mono_mkbundle_init
              (). The structure passed to initialize_mono_api doesn't need to be dynamically  allocated  as  its
              contents  is  copied  to  the  local  structure in the generated code and no pointer to the passed
              structure is retained or used after initialize_mono_api returns.

              The list of pointers is not documented here. Instead, please look at the bundle-mono-api.inc  file
              found  in  the  mkbundle  source directory in your Mono source tree (mcs/tools/mkbundle) or in the
              Mono's GitHub repository, https://github.com/mono/mono/blob/master/mcs/tools/mkbundle/bundle-mono-
              api.inc

              Please note that your structure must match the one expected by your version of the Mono runtime.

              The file must also define the mkbundle_log_error function with the following signature:

                   static void mkbundle_log_error (const char *format, ...) {}

              The function should implement logging API specific to the embedder.

OLD EMBEDDING

       The old embedding system compiles a small C stub that embeds  the  C  code  and  compiles  the  resulting
       executable  using  the  system  compiler.   This requires both a working C compiler installation and only
       works to bundle binaries for the current host.

       The feature is still available, but we recommend the simpler, faster and more convenient new mode.

       For example, to create a bundle for hello world, use the following command:

            $ mkbundle -o hello hello.exe

       The above will pull hello.exe into a native program called "hello".  Notice that the produced image still
       contains the CIL image and no precompilation is done.

       In addition, it is possible to control whether mkbundle should compile the resulting  executable  or  not
       with  the  -c  option.   This is useful if you want to link additional libraries or control the generated
       output in more detail. For example, this could be used to link some libraries statically:

            $ mkbundle -c -o host.c -oo bundles.o --deps hello.exe

            $ cc host.c bundles.o /usr/lib/libmono.a -lc -lrt

       You may also use mkbundle to generate a bundle you can use when embedding the Mono runtime  in  a  native
       application.   In  that  case,  use both the -c and --nomain options.  The resulting host.c file will not
       have a main() function.  Call mono_mkbundle_init() before initializing the JIT in your code so  that  the
       bundled assemblies are available to the embedded runtime.

OLD EMBEDDING OPTIONS

       These options can only be used instead of using the --cross, --runtime or --simple options.

       -c     Produce the stub file, do not compile the resulting stub.

       -oo filename
              Specifies the name to be used for the helper object file that contains the bundle.

       --keeptemp
              By  default  mkbundle  will  delete  the temporary files that it uses to produce the bundle.  This
              option keeps the file around.

       --nomain
              With the -c option, generate the host stub without a main() function.

       --static
              By default mkbundle dynamically links to mono and glib.  This option causes it to statically  link
              instead.

       -z     Compresses  the  assemblies  before  embedding.  This  results  in  smaller  executable files, but
              increases startup time and requires zlib to be installed on the target system.

AOT Options

       These options support an mkbundle using AOT compilation with static linking. A native compiler  toolchain
       is required.

       --aot-runtime PATH
              Provide the path to the mono runtime to use for AOTing assemblies.

       --aot-dedup
              (Experimental) Deduplicate AOT'ed methods based on a unique mangling of method names.

       --aot-mode MODE
              MODE  can  be  either  "full"  or "llvmonly" at this time.  Currently, mkbundle supports three AOT
              modes. The default mode (this option unset) will AOT methods but will fall back on runtime codegen
              where it is much faster or offers a more full  compatibility  profile.  The  "full"  setting  will
              generate  the  necessary stubs to not require runtime code generation. The "llvmonly" setting does
              the same, but forces all codegen to go through the llvm backend.

WINDOWS

       If you are using the old embedding on Windows systems, it possible to  use  a  Unix-like  toolchain  like
       cygwin's  and  install  gcc, gcc-mingw packages or use Visual Studio 2015/2017 VC toolchain together with
       Clang for Visual Studio as assembler.  Clang can be installed as  an  individual  component,  "Clang/C2",
       using Visual Studio installer.

       Using Visual Studio toolchain, mkbundle will, by default, use latest installed Visual Studio compiler and
       linker  as  well  as  Windows  SDK.  If executed from one of the Visual Studio developer command prompts,
       mkbundle will retrieve information directly from that build environment.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       AS     Assembler command. The default is "as". For Visual Studio, default is "clang.exe".  If "clang.exe"
              for Visual Studio is not installed, mkbundle will fall back using "as".

       CC     C compiler command. The default is "cc" for Linux,  "gcc"  for  cygwin  and  "cl.exe"  for  Visual
              Studio.

       MONO_BUNDLED_OPTIONS
              Options to be passed to the bundled Mono runtime, separated by spaces. See the mono(1) manual page
              or run mono --help.

WINDOWS VISUAL STUDIO ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       VisualStudioVersion
              Visual  Studio  version  used in mkbundle build.  Default, latest installed Visual Studio version.
              Values, "14.0" for Visual Studio 2015 or "15.0" for Visual Studio 2017.

       WindowsSdkVersion
              Windows SDK version used in  mkbundle  build.   Default/unknown,  latest  installed  Windows  SDK.
              Values, "8.1", "10.0.10240.0", "10.0.15063.0" etc.

       VSCMD_ARG_TGT_ARCH
              Output  target  architecture  used  in  mkbundle build.  Default/unknown, use architecture of .NET
              runtime executing mkbundle.  Values, "x86" or "x64".  NOTE, when  running  from  a  Visual  Studio
              command  prompt,  this  variable should already be set by the command prompt and match the rest of
              that build environment.

       INCLUDE
              Override all custom include paths passed to  "cl.exe".   Predefined  by  Visual  Studio  developer
              command prompt or auto detected by mkbundle when undefined.

       LIB    Override  all  custom  library  paths passed to "link.exe".  Predefined by Visual Studio developer
              command prompt or auto detected by mkbundle when undefined.

       MONOPREFIX
              Use a custom Mono SDK install root matching the output target  architecture  (x86/x64).   Default,
              mkbundle will look for installed Mono SDK’s matching targeted architecture.

       MONOLIB
              Use  a  different  mono  library  name  or  an absolute path to the mono library passed to linker.
              Default, mkbundle will use default mono library name  depending  on  mkbundle  dynamic/static  use
              case.   NOTE,  supplied  mono  library  needs to match mkbundle dynamic/static use case and target
              architecture.

       VCCRT  Override C-runtime library linker settings.  Default "MD", mkbundle  will  use  dynamic  C-runtime
              linking  on  Windows  compatible with Mono SDK distribution.  If a custom built Mono runtime using
              static C-Runtime linkage is used, setting this variable to "MT" will link using  static  C-runtime
              libraries.

       VCSUBSYSTEM
              Override Windows subsystem.  Default, "windows". If console subsystem is preferred, use "console".
              NOTE,  if  console  output  is  expected  from  output  target  process  then set this variable to
              "console".

FILES

       This program will load referenced assemblies from the Mono assembly cache.

       Targets are loaded from ~/.mono/targets/TARGETNAME/mono

BUGS

MAILING LISTS

       Visit http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-devel-list for details.

WEB SITE

       Visit: http://www.mono-project.com for details

SEE ALSO

       mcs(1),mono(1),mono-config(5).

                                                                                                  Mono(mkbundle)