Common Intermediate Language

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Common Intermediate Language (CIL) is the lowest-level human-readable programming language in the Common Language Infrastructure and in the .NET Framework. Languages which target the .NET Framework compile to CIL, which is assembled into bytecode. CIL resembles an object oriented assembly language, and is entirely stack-based. It is executed by a virtual machine. The primary .NET languages are C#, Visual Basic .NET and [[Managed Extensions for C++|Managed C++]].

With the beta releases of the .NET languages, CIL was originally known as Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL). Due to standardization of C# and the Common Language Infrastructure, the bytecode is now officially known as CIL. CIL is still often referred to as MSIL, however, and has been backronymed to mean Machine Symbolic Intermediate Language. This is especially true of longtime veterans of the .NET languages.

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