dart2native

Use the dart2native command to AOT (ahead-of-time) compilea Dart program to native x64 machine code.The dart2native command is supported on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Note: To execute Dart code without AOT compiling it, use dart, the standalone Dart VM.

The output of dart2native is eithera standalone executable (the default)or an AOT snapshot that you can run with the dartaotruntime command.A standalone executable is native machine code that’s compiled fromthe specified Dart file and its dependencies,plus a small Dart runtime that handlestype checking and garbage collection.

An AOT snapshot doesn’t include the Dart runtime.Consider using snapshots if you’re distributing multiple programsand disk space is limited.

Creating standalone executables

Here’s an example of using dart2native to create a standalone executable:

  1. $ dart2native bin/main.dart -o bin/my_app

You can distribute and run that executable like you wouldany other executable file:

  1. $ cp bin/my_app .
  2. $ ./my_app

Creating AOT snapshots

To create an AOT snapshot, add -k aot to the command:

  1. $ dart2native bin/main.dart -k aot

You can then run the app using the dartaotruntime command:

  1. $ dartaotruntime bin/main.aot

Known limitations

The initial (Dart 2.6) version of dart2native has some known limitations:

  • No cross-compilation support (issue 28617)
  • The compiler supports creating machine code only forthe operating system it’s running on.You need to run the compiler three times —on macOS, Windows, and Linux —to create executables for all three operating systems.A workaround is to use a CI (continuous integration) providerthat supports all three operating systems.
  • No signing support (issue 39106)
  • The format of the executables isn’t compatible withstandard signing tools such as codesign and SignTool.
  • No support for dart:mirrors and dart:developer
  • The code compiled by dart2native can use all of the other librariesthat the Dart VM supports.For a complete list of the core libraries you can use,see the All and AOT entries in thetable of core Dart libraries.

Tip: If one of these issues is important to you, let the Dart team know by adding a “thumbs up” to the issue.

Options

The first argument to dart2native is the path to the main Dart file:

  1. dart2native <main-dart-file> [<options>]

You can use the following options:

  • -D <key>=<value> or —define=<key>=<value>
  • Defines an environment variable.To specify multiple variables, use multiple options oruse commas to separate key-value pairs.
  • —enable-asserts
  • Enables assert statements.
  • -h or —help
  • Displays help for all options.
  • -k (aot|exe) or —output-kind=(aot|exe)
  • Specifies the output type, where exe is the default(a standalone executable). To generate an AOT snapshot,use -k aot.
  • -o <path> or —output=<path>
  • Generates the output into <path>. If you don’t use this option,the output goes into a file next to the main Dart file.Standalone executables have the suffix .exe, by default;the AOT snapshot suffix is .aot.
  • -p <path> or —packages=<path>
  • Specifies the path to the package resolution configuration file.For more information, seePackage Resolution Configuration File.
  • -v or —verbose
  • Displays more information.

dart2aot

Releases before Dart 2.6 containeda tool named dart2aot that produced AOT snapshots.The dart2native command replaces dart2aot andhas a superset of the dart2aot functionality.