Summary

In this chapter we presented an introduction to IL and to IL assembly syntax. We covered the way that IL is based on the concept of an abstract stack machine, and went over how to write simple methods that use this architecture - covering flow control, local variables, arguments, and indirection. Finally, we saw how to debug IL source code, both using Visual Studio .NET, and the command-line cordbg utility, and we looked at the various types of error that can arise when we compile or execute IL source code.

We now have a basis to move on to more advanced IL code, including instantiating objects, looking at reference and value types, enums, delegates, exception handling, and calling unmanaged code. We will cover all these in Chapter 2.