C# - basic definitions

Today I will present few basic definitions related to C# and .NET Framework environment. If you will develop some code in C# and .NET you will definitely meet those definitions.

Common Language Runtime (CLR) - it is virtual machine component used in .NET Framework (similar to JVM). It is responsible for managing and execution of .NET programs. Its main task is converting Intermediate Language code to native platform code. C# compiler create IL code, but such code cannot be run in OS environment (ex. in Windows Environment). It has to be translated to native platform code. CLR does such translation. It also has additional functionality like: memory management (including garbage collection), error handling, thread management.

Intermediate Language (IL) - this is binary code which is created by C# compiler (or any other .NET language compiler). This code cannot be directly executed in OS environment. It does not contain platform CPU instruction. IL has to be translated to CPU instruction using CLR in order to run application on particular CPU

Managed code - code which is compiled to IL and run (managed) using CLR virtual machine.

Just-In-Time (JIT) compilation - type of code translation which is being done during program running. In .NET, JIT compilation is done by CLR which translate (JIT compile) Intermediate Language (IL) to set of CPU instruction. In general, JIT improve performance of running application.

Call stack - stack of last called functions. Ex. we have following nesting functions

test1(){

test2();

}

then call stack is test2, test1