Editing Common Intermediate Language (section)

==Example==
Below is a basic [["Hello, World!" program]] written in CIL assembler. It will display the string "Hello, world!".
<syntaxhighlight lang="csharp">
.assembly Hello {}
.assembly extern mscorlib {}
.method static void Main()
{
    .entrypoint
    .maxstack 1
    ldstr "Hello, world!"
    call void [mscorlib]System.Console::WriteLine(string)
    ret
}
</syntaxhighlight>

The following code is more complex in number of opcodes.

''This code can also be compared with the corresponding code in the article about [[Java bytecode]].''
<syntaxhighlight lang="csharp">
static void Main(string[] args)
{
    for (int i = 2; i < 1000; i++)
    {
        for (int j = 2; j < i; j++)
        {
             if (i % j == 0)
                 goto outer;
        }
        Console.WriteLine(i);
        outer:;
    }
}
</syntaxhighlight>

In CIL assembler syntax it looks like this:
<syntaxhighlight lang="cpp">
.method private hidebysig static void Main(string[] args) cil managed
{
    .entrypoint
    .maxstack  2
    .locals init (int32 V_0,
                  int32 V_1)

              ldc.i4.2
              stloc.0
              br.s       IL_001f
    IL_0004:  ldc.i4.2
              stloc.1
              br.s       IL_0011
    IL_0008:  ldloc.0
              ldloc.1
              rem
              brfalse.s  IL_001b
              ldloc.1
              ldc.i4.1
              add
              stloc.1
    IL_0011:  ldloc.1
              ldloc.0
              blt.s      IL_0008
              ldloc.0
              call       void [mscorlib]System.Console::WriteLine(int32)
    IL_001b:  ldloc.0
              ldc.i4.1
              add
              stloc.0
    IL_001f:  ldloc.0
              ldc.i4     0x3e8
              blt.s      IL_0004
              ret
}
</syntaxhighlight>

This is just a representation of how CIL looks near the [[virtual machine]] (VM) level. When compiled the methods are stored in tables and the instructions are stored as bytes inside the assembly, which is a [[Portable Executable]] (PE).