How can I view MSIL / CIL generated by C# compiler? Why is it called assembly?

Question

I\'m new to .NET C# programming. I\'m following few books. It is said that instead of compiling it directly to binary code (Native code). High level code is converted into i

Answer 1

I know this is an old question, and I'd prefer any of the tools above. However, in a pinch, there has been an MSIL viewer in the box with Visual Studio since at least Version 2005.

The tool is named ildasm.exe, and is located in the following folders after default Visual Studio installations:

Visual Studio 2005 "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\Bin\ildasm.exe"

Visual Studio 2008 "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\Bin\ildasm.exe"

Visual Studio 2010 "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\Bin\NETFX 4.0 Tools\ildasm.exe"

For more information, see: "How to: View Assembly Contents" in the MSDN Library.