The Common Intermediate Language reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Jul-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Common Intermediate Language

Common Intermediate Language (CIL) is the lowest-level human-readable programming language in the .NET Framework and in the Common Language Infrastructure. Languages which target the .NET Framework compile to CIL, which is assembled into bytecode. CIL resembles an object oriented assembly language, and is entirely stack-based. It is executed by a virtual machine. The primary .NET languages are C#, Visual Basic .NET and Managed C++.

With the beta releases of the .NET languages, CIL was originally known as Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL). Due to standardization of C# and the Common Language Infrastructure the bytecode is now officially known as CIL. Because of this legacy, however, CIL is still often referred to as MSIL. This is especially true of longtime veterans of the .NET languages.

Example CIL code

This is a Hello world program in CIL.

.method public static void Main() cil managed

{

     .entrypoint

     .maxstack 8

     ldstr "Hello world."

     call void [mscorlib]System.Console::WriteLine(string)

     ret

}

External links

• Common Language Infrastructure (CLI ) - Partition III - CIL Instruction Set
• Tutorial including CIL (called MSIL in the tutorial) by Aleksey Nudelman

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