What is MSIL?

MSIL stands for Microsoft Intermediate Language.

MSIL provides instructions for calling methods, initializing and storing values, operations such as memory handling, exception handling and so on. All .Net codes are first compiled to IL.

MSIL stands for Microsoft Intermediate Language. It is also known as Intermediate Language (IL) or Common Intermediate Language (CIL). MSIL is a CPU-independent set of instructions that serves as the output of the .NET compilers. When you compile a .NET program, it is converted into MSIL rather than machine code specific to any particular CPU architecture.

MSIL allows for language interoperability within the .NET Framework. Regardless of the language used to write the original source code (C#, VB.NET, F#, etc.), the resulting MSIL can be executed by the Common Language Runtime (CLR). This enables multiple .NET languages to seamlessly interact with each other.

MSIL is not directly executed by the CPU. Instead, it is executed by the CLR’s Just-In-Time (JIT) compiler, which converts MSIL into native machine code that the CPU can execute. This compilation process occurs either when the program is run (JIT compilation) or during installation (precompilation).

In summary, MSIL serves as an intermediary language between high-level .NET languages and machine code, facilitating language interoperability and platform independence within the .NET ecosystem.