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SeanTAllen merged 1 commit into from
Oct 18, 2026
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Remove stale ponyc --docs references #607

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13 changes: 1 addition & 12 deletions docs/appendices/compiler-args.md
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Expand Up @@ -6,25 +6,14 @@
ponyc [OPTIONS] <module directory>
```

The most useful options are `--debug`, `--path` or just `-p`, `--output` or just `-o` and `--docs` or `-g`.
The most useful options are `--debug`, `--path` or just `-p`, and `--output` or just `-o`.

`--debug` will skip the LLVM optimizations passes. This should not be mixed up with `make config=debug`, the default make configuration target. `config=debug` will create DWARF symbols, and add slower assertions to ponyc, but not to the generated binaries. For those, you can omit DWARF symbols with the `--strip` or `-s` option.

`--path` or `-p` take a `:` separated path list as the argument and adds those to the compile-time library paths for the linker to find source modules and the native libraries, static or dynamic, being linked at compile-time or via the FFI at run-time. The system adds several paths already, e.g. on windows it queries the registry to find the compiler run-time paths, you can also use `use "lib:path"` statements in the source code and as a final possibility, you can add `-p` paths. But if you want the generated binary to accept such a path to find a dynamic library on your client system, you need to handle that in your source code by yourself. See the `options` package for this.

`--output` or `-o` takes a directory name where the final binary is created.

`--docs` or -`g` creates a directory of the module with documentation in [Read the Docs](https://readthedocs.org) format, i.e. markdown with nice navigation.

Let's study the documentation of the builtin standard library:

```bash
pip install mkdocs
ponyc packages/stdlib --docs && cd stdlib-docs && mkdocs serve
```

And point your web browser to [127.0.0.1:8000](http://127.0.0.1:8000) serving a live-reloading local version of the docs.

Note that there is _no built-in debugger_ to interactively step through your program and interpret the results. But ponyc creates proper DWARF symbols and you can step through your programs with a conventional debugger, such as GDB or LLDB.

## Runtime options for Pony programs
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