CHAPTER 1 THE PHILOSOPHY OF .NET
Note You can easily run ildasm.exe by opening a Developer Command Prompt, and type “ildasm” (without the
quotes) followed by the Enter key. Chapter 2 will explain how to open this “special” command window, as well as
other tools loaded from the command line.
After you launch ildasm.exe, proceed to the File Open menu command and navigate to an
assembly you would like to explore. By way of illustration, Figure 1-7 shows the Calc.exe assembly
generated based on the Calc.cs file shown earlier in this chapter. ildasm.exe presents the structure of an
assembly using a familiar tree-view format.
Figure 1-7. ildasm.exe allows you to see the CIL code, manifest, and metadata within a .NET assembly
Viewing CIL Code
In addition to showing the namespaces, types, and members contained in a given assembly, ildasm.exe
also allows you to view the CIL instructions for a given member. For example, if you were to double-click
the Main() method of the Program class, a separate window would display the underlying CIL (see
Figure 1-8).
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