Distribute-able command line applications using Dart

[tejainece]

We need a way to package and distribute Dart command line applications with no dependency on Dart VM.

It is not always guaranteed that the end user's system has DartVM installed.

A way to package DartVM and snapshot into single executable with no external dependencies would be great.

PS: Originally posted here: dart-lang/pub#1419

[anders-sandholm]

Thanks for your suggestion. We don't provide a script or C++ code for bundling the DartVM and a snapshot into a single executable with no external dependencies.

While I do agree that this is generally a useful thing to have, it is not something we are currently planning on offering.

[johnmccutchan]

@rmacnak-google How difficult would it be to do this with the precompilation work?

[rmacnak-google]

It is not a difficult change to statically link a script snapshot or precompiled snapshot into the VM, but this step would require a C compiler. I vaguely recall VisualWorks had a Windows-specific mechanism for putting a snapshot into the VM executable as some kind of resource that would be loaded if available. But I don't see the advantage of distributing a single-file executable over distributing a wrapper script with the VM and a snapshot.

[tejainece]

I can see how that could get really complicated.

Maybe a build directory containing dartvm executable, the snapshot and a script to run these for starters?

[zoechi]

You would need a dart executable per target platform. You can create a grinder task or batch script that generates that output (generate snapshot, copy dart.exe, generate script tag)