Using mono aot / aot-full compilation: nothing appears to happen?

Question

I've got a C# project that I need compiled to a native binary. I've read here:

http://www.mono-project.com/AOT

That Mono can precompile an assembly to one of two options:

1. --aot : A precompiled image (essentially the same as Ngen as it looks to me)
2. --aot=full: A fully compiled to native binary instance of the original .exe

I am fairly sure I'm understanding those right, but could be wrong about the --aot=full option.

However, when I run:

 mono.exe --aot=full --verbose program.exe  

I get no output, the last modified date on the executable remains the same, and no files are generated. I've also tried just as a test:

 mono.exe --aot --verbose program.exe 

I get the same result; no output, no image file or files in general, nothing.

Am I missing something here?

Answer 1

You should probably make a bug report. AOT info is normally displayed even without --verbose. With --verbose you should get a LOT of prints. Another possibility is that you have broken Mono installation.

Nevertheless if you want to produce native executable binary, you should use mkbundle rather than AOT.

Answer 2

You don't want --aot, you want mkbundle.

--aot tells mono to precompile some code rather than use the jit compiler, it does not give you a fully machine-code binary. For this you need mkbundle.