What Is an Intermediate Language?
Intermediate language is a CPU-independent instruction set code that can be used under various environments. Microsoft's implementation of this language under the .NET framework is known as Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL). All Common Language Runtime (CLR) compliant language compilers translate the source code written in different languages into MSIL; it's the responsibility of the CLR to process these instructions and act accordingly. (In fact, it's the responsibility of various just-in-time compilers to covert the code to machine-specific code.)
For further information on IL, please read my article IL "The language of CLR" - A Platform for Cross-Language.
Constituents of an Intermediate Language
Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) typically constitutes the instructions for the following:
Arithmetic and logical operations
Control flow
Exception handling
Direct memory access
Loading, storing, initializing, and calling methods of an object
Other operations
System Requirements
To use ILASM (Intermediate Language Assembler) under the .NET framework you need the following software:
Windows 98, 2000, XP, NT or CE
To use ILASM under nonMicrosoft environments you can go to the following locations to download the software: