Common Type System and MSIL in .Net

Common Type System - CTS

Common Type System (CTS) describes a set of types that can be used in different .Net languages in common . That is , the Common Type System (CTS) ensure that objects written in different .Net languages can interact with each other. For Communicating between programs written in any .NET complaint language, the types have to be compatible on the basic level .

These types can be Value Types or Reference Types . The Value Types are passed by values and stored in the stack. The Reference Types are passed by references and stored in the heap. Common Type System (CTS) provides base set of Data Types which is responsible for cross language integration. The Common Language Runtime (CLR) can load and execute the source code written in any .Net language, only if the type is described in the Common Type System (CTS) .Most of the members defined by types in the .NET Framework Class Library (FCL) are Common Language Specification (CLS) compliant Types.

   Microsoft Intermediate Language - MSIL

MSIL stands for Microsoft Intermediate Language. We can call it as Intermediate Language (IL) or Common Intermediate Language (CIL). During the compile time , the compiler convert the source code into Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) .Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) is a CPU-independent set of instructions that can be efficiently converted to the native code. During the runtime the Common Language Runtime (CLR)'s Just In Time (JIT) compiler converts the Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) code into native code to the Operating System.

When a compiler produces Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL), it also produces Metadata. The Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) and Metadata are contained in a portable executable (PE) file . Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) includes instructions for loading, storing, initializing, and calling methods on objects, as well as instructions for arithmetic and logical operations, control flow, direct memory access, exception handling, and other operations