Programming Visual Basic .NET

Portions of the CLI

The CLI specification recognizes that the CLR can’t be implemented to the same extent on all platforms. For example, the version of the CLR implemented on a cell phone won’t be as versatile as the one implemented on Windows 2000 or Windows XP. To address this issue, the CLI defines a set of libraries . Each library contains a set of classes that implement a certain portion of the CLI’s functionality. Further, the CLI defines profiles . A profile is a set of libraries that must be implemented on a given platform.

The libraries defined by the CLI are:

Runtime Infrastructure Library

This library provides the core services that are needed to compile and run an application that targets the CLI.

Base Class Library

This library provides the runtime services that are needed by most modern programming languages. Among other things, the primitive data types are defined in this library.

Network Library

This library provides simple networking services.

Reflection Library

This library provides the ability to examine type information at runtime and to invoke members of types by supplying the member name at runtime, rather than at compile time.

XML Library

This library provides a simple XML parser.

Floating Point Library

This library provides support for floating point types and operations.

Extended Array Library

This library provides support for multidimensional arrays.

The profiles defined by the CLI at this time are:

Kernel Profile

This profile defines the minimal functionality ...