Common Intermediate Language 1

Common Intermediate Language

Common Intermediate Language (CIL, pronounced either "sil" or "kil") (formerly called Microsoft Intermediate
Language or MSIL) is the lowest-level human-readable programming language defined by the Common Language
Infrastructure (CLI) specification and is used by the .NET Framework and Mono. Languages which target a
CLI-compatible runtime environment compile to CIL, which is assembled into an object code that has a
bytecode-style format. CIL is an object-oriented assembly language, and is entirely stack-based. Its bytecode is
translated into native code or executed by a virtual machine.
CIL was originally known as Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) during the beta releases of the .NET
languages. Due to standardization of C# and the Common Language Infrastructure, the bytecode is now officially
known as CIL.[1]

General information
During compilation of CLI programming languages, the source code is translated into CIL code rather than platform
or processor-specific object code. CIL is a CPU- and platform-independent instruction set that can be executed in
any environment supporting the Common Language Infrastructure,[2] such as the .NET runtime on Windows, or the
cross-platform Mono runtime. In theory, this eliminates the need to distribute different executable files for different
platforms and CPU types. CIL code is verified for safety during runtime, providing better security and reliability
than natively compiled executable files.
The execution process looks like this:
1. Source code is converted to Common Intermediate Language (CIL), which is the CLI's equivalent to Assembly
language for a CPU.
2. CIL is then assembled into a form of so-called bytecode and a CLI assembly is created.
3. Upon execution of a CLI assembly, its code is passed through the runtime's JIT compiler to generate native code.
Ahead-of-time compilation may also be used, which eliminates this step, but at the cost of executable file
portability.
4. The native code is executed by the computer's processor.

Instructions
CIL bytecode has instructions for the following groups of tasks:
• Load and store
• Arithmetic
• Type conversion
• Object creation and manipulation
• Operand stack management (push / pop)
• Control transfer (branching)
• Method invocation and return
• Throwing exceptions
• Monitor-based concurrency
Common Intermediate Language 2

Computational model
The Common Intermediate Language is object-oriented and stack-based. That means that data are pushed on a stack
instead of pulled from registers like in most CPU architectures.
In x86 it might look like this:

add eax, edx

The corresponding code in IL can be rendered as this:

ldloc.0
ldloc.1
add
stloc.0 // a = a + b or a += b;

Here are two locals that are pushed on the stack. When the add-instruction is called the operands get popped and the
result is pushed. The remaining value is then popped and stored in the first local.

Object-oriented concepts
This extends to object-oriented concepts as well. You may create objects, call methods and use other types of
members such as fields.
CIL is designed to be object-oriented and every method needs (with some exceptions) to reside in a class. So does
this static method:

.class public Foo

{
.method public static int32 Add(int32, int32) cil managed
{
.maxstack 2
ldarg.0 // load the first argument;
ldarg.1 // load the second argument;
add // add them;
ret // return the result;
}
}

This method does not require any instance of Foo to be declared because it is static. That means it belongs to the
class and it may then be used like this in C#:

int r = Foo.Add(2, 3); // 5

In CIL:

ldc.i4.2
ldc.i4.3
call int32 Foo::Add(int32, int32)
stloc.0

Instance classes
An instance class contains at least one constructor and some instance members. This class has a set of methods
representing actions of a Car-object.
Common Intermediate Language 3

.class public Car

{
.method public specialname rtspecialname instance void .ctor(int32, int32) cil managed
{
/* Constructor */
}

.method public void Move(int32) cil managed

{
/* Omitting implementation */
}

.method public void TurnRight() cil managed

{
/* Omitting implementation */
}

.method public void TurnLeft() cil managed

{
/* Omitting implementation */
}

.method public void Brake() cil managed

{
/* Omitting implementation */
}
}

Creating objects
In C# class instances are created like this:

Car myCar = new Car(1, 4);

Car yourCar = new Car(1, 3);

And these statements are roughly the same as these instructions:

ldc.i4.1
ldc.i4.4
newobj instance void Car::.ctor(int, int)
stloc.0 // myCar = new Car(1, 4);
ldc.i4.1
ldc.i4.3
newobj instance void Car::.ctor(int, int)
stloc.1 // yourCar = new Car(1, 3);

Invoking instance methods

Instance methods are invoked like the one that follows:

myCar.Move(3);
Common Intermediate Language 4

In CIL:

ldloc.0 // Load the object "myCar" on the stack

ldc.i4.3
call instance void Car::Move(int32)

Metadata
CLI records information about compiled classes as Metadata. Like the type library in the Component Object Model,
this enables applications to support and discover the interfaces, classes, types, methods, and fields in the assembly.
The process of reading such metadata is called reflection.
Metadata can be data in the form of attributes. Attributes can be custom made by extending from the Attribute
class. This is a very powerful feature. It allows the creator of the class the ability to adorn it with extra information
that consumers of the class can use in various meaningful ways depending on the application domain.

Example
Below is a basic Hello, World program written in CIL. It will display the string "Hello, world!".

.assembly Hello {}
.assembly extern mscorlib {}
.method static void Main()
{
.entrypoint
.maxstack 1
ldstr "Hello, world!"
call void [mscorlib]System.Console::WriteLine(string)
ret
}

The following code is more complex in number of opcodes.

This code can also be compared with the corresponding code in the article about Java bytecode.

static void Main(string[] args)

{
for (int i = 2; i < 1000; i++)
{
for (int j = 2; j < i; j++)
{
if (i % j == 0)
goto outer;
}
Console.WriteLine(i);
outer:
}
}

In CIL syntax it looks like this:

.method private hidebysig static void Main(string[] args) cil managed

{
Common Intermediate Language 5

.entrypoint
.maxstack 2
.locals init (int32 V_0,
int32 V_1)

ldc.i4.2
stloc.0
br.s IL_001f
IL_0004: ldc.i4.2
stloc.1
br.s IL_0011
IL_0008: ldloc.0
ldloc.1
rem
brfalse.s IL_001b
ldloc.1
ldc.i4.1
add
stloc.1
IL_0011: ldloc.1
ldloc.0
blt.s IL_0008
ldloc.0
call void [mscorlib]System.Console::WriteLine(int32)
IL_001b: ldloc.0
ldc.i4.1
add
stloc.0
IL_001f: ldloc.0
ldc.i4 0x3e8
blt.s IL_0004
ret
}

This is just a representation of how CIL looks like near VM-level. When compiled the methods are stored in tables
and the instructions are stored as bytes inside the assembly, which is a Portable Executable (PE).

Generation
A CIL assembly and instructions are generated by either a compiler or a utility called the IL Assembler (ILASM) that
is shipped with the execution environment.
Assembled IL can also be disassembled into code again using the IL Disassembler (ILDASM). There are other tools
such as .NET Reflector that can decompile IL into a high-level language (e.g. C# or Visual Basic). This makes IL a
very easy target for reverse engineering. This trait is shared with Java bytecode. However, there are tools that can
obfuscate the code, and do it so that the code cannot be easily readable but still be runnable.
Common Intermediate Language 6

Execution

Just-in-time compilation
Just-in-time compilation involves turning the byte-code into code immediately executable by the CPU. The
conversion is performed gradually during the program's execution. JIT compilation provides environment-specific
optimization, runtime type safety, and assembly verification. To accomplish this, the JIT compiler examines the
assembly metadata for any illegal accesses and handles violations appropriately.

Ahead-of-time compilation
CLI-compatible execution environments also come with the option to do an Ahead-of-time compilation (AOT) of an
assembly to make it execute faster by removing the JIT process at runtime.
In the .NET Framework there is a special tool called the Native Image Generator (NGEN) that performs the AOT. In
Mono there is also an option to do an AOT.

External links
• Common Language Infrastructure (Standard ECMA-335) [3]
• “ECMA C# and Common Language Infrastructure Standards” on MSDN [4]
• Hello world program in CIL
• Kenny Kerr's intro to CIL (called MSIL in the tutorial) [5]
• Speed: NGen Revs Up Your Performance With Powerful New Features -- MSDN Magazine, April 2005 [6]

References
[3] http:/ / www. ecma-international. org/ publications/ standards/ Ecma-335. htm
[4] http:/ / msdn. microsoft. com/ en-us/ netframework/ aa569283. aspx
[5] http:/ / weblogs. asp. net/ kennykerr/ archive/ 2004/ 09/ 07/ introduction-to-msil-part-1-hello-world. aspx
[6] http:/ / msdn. microsoft. com/ en-us/ magazine/ cc163808. aspx
Article Sources and Contributors 7

Article Sources and Contributors

Common Intermediate Language Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=541755087 Contributors: Aranel, Bevo, Blairsh, Borgx, Bryan Derksen, Bunnyhop11, Cetinsert, Chip
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