litter
litter

Reputation: 313

Is it possible to compile .NET IL code to machine code?

I would like to distribute my .NET programs without the .NET framework. Is it possible to compile a .NET program to machine code?

Upvotes: 31

Views: 18954

Answers (14)

Myitian
Myitian

Reputation: 1

.NET 7+ supports AOT. For more information, see https://learn.microsoft.com/dotnet/core/deploying/native-aot.


Publish Native AOT using the CLI

  1. Add <PublishAot>true</PublishAot> to your project file.

    This property enables Native AOT compilation during publish. It also enables dynamic code-usage analysis during build and editing. It's preferable to put this setting in the project file rather than passing it on the command line, since it controls behaviors outside publish.

    <PropertyGroup>
        <PublishAot>true</PublishAot>
    </PropertyGroup>
    
  2. Publish the app for a specific runtime identifier using dotnet publish -r <RID>.

    The following example publishes the app for Windows as a Native AOT application on a machine with the required prerequisites installed.

    dotnet publish -r win-x64 -c Release

    The following example publishes the app for Linux as a Native AOT application. A Native AOT binary produced on Linux machine is only going to work on same or newer Linux version. For example, Native AOT binary produced on Ubuntu 20.04 is going to run on Ubuntu 20.04 and later, but it isn't going to run on Ubuntu 18.04.

    dotnet publish -r linux-arm64 -c Release

The app is available in the publish directory and contains all the code needed to run in it, including a stripped-down version of the coreclr runtime.


Limitations in the .NET Native AOT deployment model

.NET 7

Native AOT is targeted towards console-type apps. Only a limited number of libraries are fully compatible with Native AOT.

.NET 8+

AOT support in .NET 8 is more comprehensive than in .NET 7. However, there are still some limitations. For more information, see Limitations of Native AOT deployment.


Platform/architecture restrictions

The following table shows supported compilation targets.

.NET 7

Platform Supported architecture
Windows x64, Arm64
Linux x64, Arm64

.NET 8+

Platform Supported architecture Notes
Windows x64, Arm64
Linux x64, Arm64
macOS x64, Arm64
iOS Arm64 Experimental support
iOSSimulator x64, Arm64 Experimental support
tvOS Arm64 Experimental support
tvOSSimulator x64, Arm64 Experimental support
MacCatalyst x64, Arm64 Experimental support
Android x64, Arm64 Experimental, no built-in Java interop

Upvotes: 0

For those using .NET Core or more recent .NET (5+), there is a Self-Contained deployment option, which is described in MSDN as

The output publishing folder contains all components of the app, including the .NET libraries and target runtime. The app is isolated from other .NET apps and doesn't use a locally installed shared runtime. The user of your app isn't required to download and install .NET.

Steps to prepare a self-contained deployment:

  • Switch the solution configuration from Debug to Release.
  • Right click on the project in Solution Explorer and select Publish.
  • Select Folder as the Target and click Next.
  • Select again Folder as the Specific target and click Next.
  • In the Location tab, browse your target binaries path and click Finish.
  • In the Publish tab, click the small pencil icon (Edit Target runtime) at the end of the Target runtime row.
  • In the Profile settings dialog (displayed below), Select Self-contained from the Deployment mode combobox.
  • Choose your runtime from the Target runtime combobox.
  • (Optionally) Specify the output path of the binaries from the Target location combobox.
  • Click Save.
  • When you click the Publish button in the Publish tab, your binaries will be created.

Self-contained deployment

There are other deployment options such as Azure, Docker Container Registry etc. but for simplicity I chose the Folder option. Note that the steps and the screenshot belongs to VS 2019.

For more info see Self-Contained Publishing.

Upvotes: 0

Stan
Stan

Reputation: 6245

Yes, you can now! Recently Microsoft announced .NET Native, a piece of technology that compiles your application with .NET Native runtime (they call it MRT) into one binary (actually one executable and one dynamic library).

See links: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dotnet/archive/2014/04/02/announcing-net-native-preview.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dotnet/archive/2014/04/24/dotnetnative-performance.aspx

Upvotes: 4

LicenseQ
LicenseQ

Reputation: 1791

Look at MONO project: mono command with --aot option. http://www.mono-project.com/AOT

Upvotes: 1

Sven Hecht
Sven Hecht

Reputation: 1337

There is IL2CPU for the compilation part.

Upvotes: 2

Pablo Marambio
Pablo Marambio

Reputation: 1568

I think you should not: That's the task of the JIT compiler.

However, you could use ClickOnce or Windows Installer to deploy it so that the missing framework isn't such a big problem: you could tell the installer to download the Framework and install it.

Upvotes: 1

C. Dragon 76
C. Dragon 76

Reputation: 10062

Is it possible to compile .NET IL code to machine code?

Yes, but the .NET Framework does it for you at runtime (default) or at install time (ngen). Among other reasons, this IL -> machine code is done separately on each install machine so it can be optimized for that particular machine.

I would like to distribute my .NET programs without the .NET framework. Is it possible to compile a .NET program to machine code?

No, for all intents and purposes you cannot do this. The 3rd party workarounds may work in some scenarios, but by then I wouldn't really consider it "managed code" or ".NET" anymore.

Upvotes: 3

FlySwat
FlySwat

Reputation: 175593

Yes, you can precompile using Ngen.exe, however this does not remove the CLR dependence.

You must still ship the IL assemblies as well, the only benefit of Ngen is that your application can start without invoking the JIT, so you get a real fast startup time.

According to CLR Via C#:

Also, assemblies precompiled using Ngen are usually slower than JIT'ed assemblies because the JIT compiler can optimize to the targets machine (32-bit? 64-bit? Special registers? etc), while NGEN will just produce a baseline compilation.

EDIT:

There is some debate on the above info from CLR Via C#, as some say that you are required to run Ngen on the target machine only as part of the install process.

Upvotes: 22

CodeChef
CodeChef

Reputation: 906

If you just concerned with the size of deploying the Framework, you might read up on this.

Upvotes: 1

Mesh
Mesh

Reputation: 6442

I'd always thought it would be cool to compile c# to machine code directly without the CLR dependency though....

Upvotes: 0

Jacob
Jacob

Reputation: 23225

Another (expensive and proprietary, licenses start at $1599) product that can do this is Xenocode Postbuild. Haven't used it myself though, with it costing about the gross national product of a small African country and all...

Upvotes: 5

Turnkey
Turnkey

Reputation: 9406

There are some third party tools that do this, e.g.

Upvotes: 7

OregonGhost
OregonGhost

Reputation: 23759

Remotesoft has one: Salamander .NET Linker

I don't have any experience with it though.

Upvotes: 20

axk
axk

Reputation: 5394

I don't think that it is possible. You can make a prejitted assembly but you still need the framework.

Upvotes: 1

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