How does the .NET IL .maxstack directive work?

Question

I\'d like to know how does .maxstack really work. I know it doesn\'t have to do with the actual size of the types you are declaring but with the number of them. My questions

Answer 1

You can refer to the following and the ECMA STANDARD to get a better understanding:

void  msd(string a,
  string b,
  string c,
  string d,
  string e)
  {
  Console.WriteLine(a);
}

msd("a","b","c","d","e");

When I run ildasm.exe I got this:

{
  .entrypoint
  // Code size       40 (0x28)
  .maxstack  8
  IL_0000:  nop
  IL_0001:  nop
  IL_0002:  ldstr      "a"
  IL_0007:  ldstr      "b"
  IL_000c:  ldstr      "c"
  IL_0011:  ldstr      "d"
  IL_0016:  ldstr      "e"
  IL_001b:  call       void sf.Program::'
g__msd|0_0'(string,
                                                           string,
                                                           string,
                                                           string,
                                                           string)
  IL_0020:  nop
  IL_0021:  call       string [mscorlib]System.Console::ReadLine()
  IL_0026:  pop
  IL_0027:  ret
} // end of method Program::Main

from the above. I found the max stakc value which isn't determined by the push & pop instructions.

I didn't know what the real stack number values are. So, I reference the ildasm disassembly code to determine the real max stack value.