Skip to content

feat: binary options #4974

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Open
wants to merge 6 commits into
base: master
Choose a base branch
from
Open

feat: binary options #4974

Show file tree
Hide file tree
Changes from 4 commits
Commits
Show all changes
6 commits
Select commit Hold shift + click to select a range
43e5285
feat: binary options
danil-pavlov Jul 23, 2025
88c32e1
update: xml table
danil-pavlov Jul 25, 2025
ee0c924
update: review suggestions
danil-pavlov Aug 4, 2025
d58178c
fix: review suggestions
danil-pavlov Aug 11, 2025
2f85e06
fix: review suggestions
danil-pavlov Aug 14, 2025
35fc315
chore: broken anchor
danil-pavlov Aug 14, 2025
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
1 change: 1 addition & 0 deletions docs/kr.tree
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -202,6 +202,7 @@
<toc-element toc-title="Integration with ARC" accepts-web-file-names="native-ios-integration.html" topic="native-arc-integration.md"/>
<toc-element toc-title="Migration guide" topic="native-migration-guide.md"/>
</toc-element>
<toc-element toc-title="Binary options" topic="native-binary-options.md"/>
<toc-element topic="native-debugging.md"/>
<toc-element topic="native-ios-symbolication.md"/>
<toc-element toc-title="Reference and tips">
Expand Down
328 changes: 328 additions & 0 deletions docs/topics/native/native-binary-options.md
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
@@ -0,0 +1,328 @@
[//]: # (title: Kotlin/Native binary options)

This page lists helpful Kotlin/Native binary options that you can use to configure Kotlin/Native [final binaries](https://www.jetbrains.com/help/kotlin-multiplatform-dev/multiplatform-build-native-binaries.html)
and the ways to set them up in your project.

## How to enable

You can enable binary options in the `gradle.properties` file, your build file, or pass them as compiler arguments.

### In Gradle properties

You can set binary options in your project's `gradle.properties` file using `kotlin.native.binary`, for example:

```none
kotlin.native.binary.gc=cms
kotlin.native.binary.latin1Strings=true
```

### In your build file

You can set binary options for your project in your `build.gradle.kts` file:

* For specific binaries using the `binaryOption` attribute, for example:

```kotlin
kotlin {
iosArm64 {
binaries {
framework {
binaryOption("smallBinary", "true")
}
}
}
}
```

* As `-Xbinary=$option=$value` compiler options in the `freeCompilerArgs` attribute, for example:

```kotlin
kotlin {
iosArm64 {
compilations.configureEach {
compilerOptions.configure {
freeCompilerArgs.add("-Xbinary=smallBinary=true")
}
}
}
}
```

### In the command-line compiler

You can pass binary options as `-Xbinary=$option=$value` directly in the command line when executing
the [Kotlin/Native compiler](native-get-started.md#using-the-command-line-compiler),
for example:

```bash
kotlinc-native main.kt -Xbinary=enableSafepointSignposts=true
```

## Binary options

> This table is not an exhaustive list of all the existing options, only the most notable ones.
>
{style="note"}

<table column-width="fixed">
<tr>
<td width="240">Option</td>
<td width="170">Values</td>
<td>Description</td>
<td width="110">Status</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="whatsnew-eap.md" anchor="smaller-binary-size-for-ios-targets"><code>smallBinary</code></a></td>
<td>
<list>
<li><code>true</code></li>
<li><code>false</code> (default)</li>
</list>
</td>
<td>Decreases the binary size for iOS targets.</td>
Copy link
Contributor

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

This flag works for any target, but only in release mode at the moment.

Copy link
Contributor Author

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Interesting, we missed this during WN 2.2.20-Beta publication, fixed in WN as well. thank you!

<td>Experimental since 2.2.20</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="whatsnew-eap.md" anchor="support-for-stack-canaries-in-binaries"><code>stackProtector</code></a></td>
<td>
<list>
<li><code>yes</code></li>
<li><code>strong</code></li>
<li><code>all</code></li>
<li><code>no</code> (default)</li>
</list>
</td>
<td>Enables stack canaries: use <code>yes</code> for vulnerable functions, <code>all</code> for all functions, and <code>strong</code> to utilize stronger heuristic.</td>
<td>Available since 2.2.20</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="native-memory-manager.md" anchor="disable-allocator-paging"><code>pagedAllocator</code></a></td>
<td>
<list>
<li><code>true</code> (default)</li>
<li><code>false</code></li>
</list>
</td>
<td>Controls paging of allocations (buffering). When <code>false</code>, the memory allocator reserves memory on a per-object basis.</td>
<td>Experimental since 2.2.0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="native-memory-manager.md" anchor="enable-support-for-latin-1-strings"><code>latin1Strings</code></a></td>
<td>
<list>
<li><code>true</code></li>
<li><code>false</code> (default)</li>
</list>
</td>
<td>Controls support for Latin-1-encoded strings to reduce application binary size and adjust memory consumption.</td>
<td>Experimental since 2.2.0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="native-memory-manager.md" anchor="track-memory-consumption-on-apple-platforms"><code>mmapTag</code></a></td>
<td><code>UInt</code></td>
<td>Controls memory tagging, necessary for memory consumption tracking on Apple platforms. Values <code>240</code>-<code>255</code> are available (default is <code>246</code>); <code>0</code> disables tagging</td>
<td>Available since 2.2.0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>disableMmap</code></td>
<td>
<list>
<li><code>true</code></li>
<li><code>false</code> (default)</li>
</list>
</td>
<td>Controls the default allocator. When <code>true</code>, uses the <code>malloc</code> memory allocator instead of <code>mmap</code>.</td>
<td>Available since 2.2.0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>gc</code></td>
<td>
<list>
<li><code>pmcs</code> (default)</li>
<li><code>stwms</code></li>
<li><a href="native-memory-manager.md" anchor="optimize-gc-performance"><code>cms</code></a></li>
<li><a href="native-memory-manager.md" anchor="disable-garbage-collection"><code>noop</code></a></li>
</list>
</td>
<td>Controls garbage collection behavior:
<list>
<li><code>pmcs</code> uses parallel mark concurrent sweep</li>
<li><code>stwms</code> uses simple stop-the-world mark and sweep</li>
<li><code>cms</code> enables concurrent marking that helps decrease GC pause time</li>
<li><code>noop</code> disables garbage collection</li>
</list>
</td>
<td><code>cms</code> is Experimental since 2.0.20</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="native-memory-manager.md" anchor="garbage-collector"><code>gcMarkSingleThreaded</code></a></td>
<td>
<list>
<li><code>true</code></li>
<li><code>false</code> (default)</li>
</list>
</td>
<td>Disables parallelization of the mark phase in garbage collection. May increase GC pause time on large heaps.</td>
<td>Available since 1.7.20</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="native-memory-manager.md" anchor="monitor-gc-performance"><code>enableSafepointSignposts</code></a></td>
<td>
<list>
<li><code>true</code></li>
<li><code>false</code> (default)</li>
</list>
</td>
<td>Enables tracking GC-related pauses in the project for debugging in Xcode Instruments.</td>
<td>Available since 2.0.20</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>preCodegenInlineThreshold</code></td>
<td><code>UInt</code></td>
<td>
<p>Configures inlining optimization pass in the Kotlin IR compiler, which comes before the actual code generation phase (disabled by default).</p>
<p>The recommended number of tokens (code units parsed by the compiler) is 40.</p>
</td>
<td>Experimental since 2.1.20</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="native-arc-integration.md" anchor="deinitializers"><code>objcDisposeOnMain</code></a></td>
<td>
<list>
<li><code>true</code> (default)</li>
<li><code>false</code></li>
</list>
</td>
<td>Controls deinitialization of Swift/Objective-C objects. When <code>false</code>, deinitialization happens on a special GC thread instead of the main one.</td>
<td>Available since 1.9.0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="native-arc-integration.md" anchor="support-for-background-state-and-app-extensions"><code>appStateTracking</code></a></td>
<td>
<list>
<li><code>enabled</code></li>
<li><code>disabled</code> (default)</li>
</list>
</td>
<td>
<p>Controls timer-based invocation of the garbage collector when the application runs in the background.</p>
<p>When <code>enabled</code>, GC is called only when memory consumption becomes too high.</p>
</td>
<td>Experimental since 1.7.20</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>bundleId</code></td>
<td>
<list>
<li><code>String</code></li>
</list>
</td>
<td>Sets bundle ID (<code>CFBundleIdentifier</code>) in the <code>Info.plst</code> file.</td>
<td>Available since 1.7.20</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>bundleShortVersionString</code></td>
<td>
<list>
<li><code>String</code></li>
</list>
</td>
<td>Sets short bundle version (<code>CFBundleShortVersionString</code>) in the <code>Info.plst</code> file.</td>
<td>Available since 1.7.20</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>bundleVersion</code></td>
<td>
<list>
<li><code>String</code></li>
</list>
</td>
<td>Sets bundle version (<code>CFBundleVersion</code>) in the <code>Info.plst</code> file.</td>
<td>Available since 1.7.20</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>sourceInfoType</code></td>
<td>
<list>
<li><code>libbacktrace</code></li>
<li><code>coresymbolication</code> (Apple targets)</li>
<li><code>noop</code> (default)</li>
</list>
</td>
<td>
<p>Adds file locations and line numbers to exception stack traces.</p>
<p><code>coresymbolication</code> is only available for Apple targets and enabled by default for macOS and Apple simulators in debug mode.</p>
</td>
<td>Experimental since 1.6.20</td>
</tr>
<!-- <tr>
<td><code>objcExportReportNameCollisions</code></td>
<td>
<list>
<li><code>true</code></li>
<li><code>false</code> (default)</li>
</list>
</td>
<td>When <code>enabled</code>, reports warnings in case name collisions occur during Objective-C export.</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>objcExportErrorOnNameCollisions</code></td>
<td>
<list>
<li><code>true</code></li>
<li><code>false</code> (default)</li>
</list>
</td>
<td>When <code>true</code>, issues errors in case name collisions occur during Objective-C export.</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>debugCompilationDir</code></td>
<td><code>String</code></td>
<td>Specifies the directory path to use for debug information in the compiled binary.</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>fixedBlockPageSize</code></td>
<td><code>UInt</code></td>
<td>Controls the page size for fixed memory blocks in the memory allocator. Affects memory allocation performance and fragmentation.</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>gcMutatorsCooperate</code></td>
<td>
<list>
<li><code>true</code></li>
<li><code>false</code> (default)</li>
</list>
</td>
<td>Controls cooperation between mutator threads and the garbage collector.</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>auxGCThreads</code></td>
<td><code>UInt</code></td>
<td>Specifies the number of auxiliary threads to use for garbage collection.</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>sanitizer</code></td>
<td>
<list>
<li><code>address</code></li>
<li><code>thread</code></li>
</list>
</td>
<td>Enables runtime sanitizers for detecting various issues like memory errors, data races, and undefined behavior.</td>
<td>Experimental</td>
</tr> -->
</table>

> For more information on stability levels, see the [documentation](components-stability.md#stability-levels-explained).
>
{style="tip"}

## What's next

Learn how to [build final native binaries](https://www.jetbrains.com/help/kotlin-multiplatform-dev/multiplatform-build-native-binaries.html).