interpreter

Quick and dirty experiments with Xamarin.iOS and the IL interpreter

• dynamicload: a quick sample that does Assembly.Load, dynamic, code downloading and System.Reflection.Emit - all the things you can't normally do on iOS

• subclass: a specialized sample to validate special optimizations (mostly done by the managed linker) are not interfering, by default, with the interpreter.

Requirements

• Xamarin.iOS 12.7.1.x build

This is a special build that includes

• a mscorlib.dll with extra types, so compiling code using System.Reflection.Emit is possible;
• a libmono runtime including the System.Reflection.Emit native code (icalls) for devices;
• a System.Core.dll build for the normal dynamic support (not the SLE interpreter);

The other (experimental) features are already included in Xamarin.iOS 12.6+

How-to roll your own interpreted application

1. Create a new iOS project (or use an existing one);
2. In the project's options, iOS Build, add --interpreter to the Additional mtouch arguments
3. Build and deploy to device

FAQ

1. What happens if I don't provide the --interpreter argument ?

The application will be AOT'ed just like normal Xamarin.iOS applications always have been.

2. What happens if I don't use Xamarin.iOS 12.7.1.x ?

Some extra features, like System.Reflection.Emit, won't be supported.

3. What happens if I use a newer Xamarin.iOS, like 12.8.x+ ?

Some extra features, like System.Reflection.Emit, won't be supported. Xamarin.iOS 12.7.1 is a special build to preview features that will become available in a future stable release.

4. How can I control what's AOT'ed and what's interpreted ?

--interpreter[=VALUE]  Enable the *experimental* interpreter. Optionally
                       takes a comma-separated list of assemblies to
                       interpret (if prefixed with a minus sign, the
                       assembly will be AOT-compiled instead). 'all'
                       can be used to specify all assemblies. This
                       argument can be specified multiple times.

Feedback

If you are experimenting with this build then come talk to us on our gitter channel.

Please report issues on github issues and include all the requested information.