A Programmer's Guide to .NET

2.2. Managed code

When we compile for CLR, the resulting code is called “managed code”. This code can take advantage of services provided by Common Language Runtime. This is available via the metadata, which is information about types, members, and references in the code that is created during the compilation and stored with the compiled code. Common Language Runtime uses metadata to locate classes and load them, generate platform-dependent code (also called “native code”), and provide security.

Microsoft Intermediate Language

The result of the compilation of the source code is the Microsoft Intermediate Language – a CPU-independent set of instructions that can later be converted to native code. Microsoft Intermediate Language contains instructions ...