Delphi for .NET Developer’s Guide

The Common Language Runtime (CLR)

The Common Language Runtime (CLR) is a key component to the .NET Framework. The CLR handles the execution of .NET applications and provides necessary runtime services for these applications. The CLR, when invoked, performs the required operations to compile, allocate memory for, and manage the code of the invoking application. Although similar, in part, to the way that interpreted languages work, the CLR is anything but an interpreted system.

The CLR operates on an intermediate representation of the original code written in some .NET compliant languages such as Delphi or C#. This code, called the Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) or simply Intermediate Language (IL), is contained in a file called a managed ...