Inside Microsoft .NET IL Assembler (Paperback)

~ SERGE LIDIN (Author) "This chapter offers a general overview of the MSIL assembly language (ILAsm)..." (more)
Key Phrases: accessibility flags, runtime header, call vararg, Table Validity Rules, Visual Basic, Export Address (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

.NET IL Assemble is the intermediate language that the .NET common language runtime converts to machine language in .NET applications. Get the inside scoop on this critical low-level language with an architectural guide from the most reliable authority-the language's designer, Serge Lidin. You'll discover common structures, functions, and rules for designing .NET applications, explanations for how .NET executables compile, details on the .NET IL Assembler, IL Disassembler and Metadata Validation tools, and more.

Product Details

• Paperback: 467 pages
• Publisher: Microsoft Press (February 6, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735615470
• ISBN-13: 978-0735615472
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #659,364 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Use this book to learn IL and improve ALL your .NET skills, February 27, 2003

By	Richard A. Lowe (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Inside Microsoft .NET IL Assembler is like a backstage pass to the language that ALL managed .NET code compiles down to and a great companion to any .NET developer who wants to better understand how their code is compiled and executed.

Benefits of the book:

For the 'average' .NET developer there are a number of things you can learn and apply to daily software development. For a start you will learn how to read the IL code from compiled C#, VB.NET or any other managed .NET assembly. This will give you more options in tuning performance (since you will understand the true IL impact of your code alternatives) or hunting down bugs, even if orignial source is unavailable.

Learning the finer points of IL will allow you to use the Reflection.Emit namespace to dynamically create and load your own IL-based assemblies at run time, for extreme flexibility, performance or both.

Knowing IL will also allow you to work with existing assemblies by disassembling then, modifying their code then re-assembling them (IL round-tripping). You can add functionality that is not available to C# or VB.NET (i.e. global methods and fields or unions within a struct) or you can control minute details of unmanaged interop.

Things I thought could be improved:

Since the text is quite dense with information, there could be more context which would help with actual application. Sometimes the implications of what was being talked about weren't clear to me.

There were few samples on the CD, although there were lots of snippets inline with the text.

All in all, this is my favorite .NET book simply because, although you can be a great .NET programmer without knowing IL, you are definately better off if you do.

22 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The ECMA Spec is More Useful, October 24, 2002

By	"hinoue3" (Albuquerque, NM United States) - See all my reviews

From its table of contents, this book would seem to be an invaluable resource for vm architects or compiler writers. Unfortunately, the book is wrong in places and the online errata page isn't updated. Also, the explanations aren't as in depth as I would like. This book should be a companion or replacement to the ECMA CIL specification. Sadly, it's neither.

5 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars This book is mostly about the IL language, November 28, 2002

By	J. Balderas - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was looking for a book which offered a more detailed view on .NET assemblies and interaction with the CLR: guidelines for packaging and deploying assemblies, how the CLR locates assemblies, etc.

This book does provide that information, nonetheless, my mistake was not realizing that this is a book mainly about the *IL language* itself. I was not interested in looking into that much detail. The book also covers in great detail what exactly is stored in a .NET assembly. I also liked the discussion on interoperation of managed and unmanaged code.

If you're looking for a book on IL, this is your book, otherwise it seems that the book 'Compiling for the .NET CLR' is a better book for what I was looking for.