Common Language Runtime (CLR)

The Common Language Runtime (CLR) is programming that manages the execution of programs written in any of several supported languages, allowing them to share common object-oriented class es written in any of the languages. The Common Language Runtime is somewhat comparable to the Java Virtual Machine that Sun Microsystems furnishes for running programs compiled from the Java language. Microsoft refers to its Common Language Runtime as a "managed execution environment." A program compiled for the CLR does not need a language-specific execution environment and can easily be moved to and run on any system with Windows 2000 or Windows XP .




Programmers writing in any of Visual Basic , Visual C++ , or C# compile their programs into an intermediate form of code called Common Intermediate Language ( CIL ) in a portable execution ( PE ) file that can then be managed and executed by the Common Language Runtime. The programmer and the environment specify descriptive information about the program when it is compiled and the information is stored with the compiled program as metadata . Metadata, stored in the compiled program, tells the CLR what language was used, its version, and what class libraries will be needed by the program. The Common Language Runtime allows an instance of a class written in one language to call a method of a class written in another language. It also provides garbage collecting (returning unneeded memory to the computer), exception handling, and debugging services.