Numblocks usage

To control the NumBlocks tool, a variety of arguments can be provided. The arguments can be provided directly to numblocks, or using the property file numblocks.conf.

The syntax is as follows:

numblocks [-help (--help, -h, -?)] [-Xhelp] [-Xdoc] [-version]
          [-verbose] [-showSettings] [-saveSettings=<file>]
          [-configuration=<file>] [-XjamaicaHome=<path>] [-all]
          [-classpath (-cp)=<path>] [-bootclasspath
          (-Xbootclasspath)=<path>] [-smart] [-numThreads=<n>] 
          class1{"["<len>"]"} [... classn{"["<len>"]"}]

General

These are general options providing information about numblocks itself or enabling the use of script files that specify further options

-help (--help, -h, -?)

Display the usage of the NumBlocks tool and a short description of all possible standard command line options

-Xhelp

Display the usage of the NumBlocks tool and a short description of all possible standard and extended command line options. The extended command line options are not needed for normal control of the numblocks command. They provide means to configure the tools and options to be used and provide tools required internally for development of the JamaicaVM

-Xdoc

Setting this option causes the creation of docbook documentation file for this command.

-version

Prints the version of the Jamaica Builder Tool and exits.

-verbose

Set verbose level. If verbose level is greated than 0, additional output on the state of the build process is printed to standard out.

-showSettings

The currently used options of the JamaicaVM Builder are written to stdout in property file format. To make these the default settings, copy these options into /home/schnider/Jamaica-2.6/build-doc/src/etc/numblocks.conf

-saveSettings=<file>

The currently used options of JamaicaVM NumBlocks are written to the provided file in property file format. If you want those settings to become default values, the file has to be /home/schnider/Jamaica-2.6/build-doc/src/etc/numblocks.conf

-configuration=<file>

The set of options used to perform numblocks are read from the provided file. The format used to define options must be identical to the default configuration file <JAMAICA_HOME>/etc/numblocks.conf.

Classes, files, and paths

These options allow to specify classes and paths to be used by numblocks.

-XjamaicaHome=<path>

Specifies the path to the Jamaica directory. The Jamaica home path can also be set with the environment variable JAMAICA_HOME.

-all

If this option is set, the number of blocks required for the allocation of objects of all classes in this application will be displayed.

-classpath (-cp)=<path>

Specify the paths that are to be used to search for class files. A list of paths separated by the path separator char (":" on Unix systems) can be specified. This list will be traversed from left to right when the builder tries to load a class.

-bootclasspath (-Xbootclasspath)=<path>

Specifies default path used for loading system classes

Smart linking and compaction

Smart linking and compaction are techniques to reduce the code size and heap memory required by the generated application. These techniques are controlled by the following options.

-smart

This Builder option has an influence on the number of blocks required for some objects. Consequently, it must be provided to numblocks for all applications that are built using -smart.

Memory and threads settings

-numThreads=<n>

This Builder option has an influence on the number of blocks required for some objects. Consequently, it must be provided to numblocks for all applications that are built with a specified number of threads.