CIL Tools

License: BSD 2.0

CIL tools is a set of software to work with Common Intermediate Language in .NET:

CilTools.BytecodeAnalysis - programmatically inspect bytecode of methods
CilTools.Runtime - load bytecode of methods in another process
CilTools.Metadata - inspect assembly via reflection without loading it into the current process
CilTools.CommandLine - cross-platform command line tool to display CIL code of methods
CilView - windows application to display CIL code of methods in the given assembly file or process

CilTools.BytecodeAnalysis (previously CilBytecodeParser)

Requirements: .NET Framework 3.5+ or .NET Standard 2.0+

CilTools.BytecodeAnalysis reads .NET methods' Common Intermediate Language (CIL) bytecode and converts it into high-level objects or textual CIL representation so they can be easily studied and programmatically processed.

Usage

Add reference to CilTools.BytecodeAnalysis.dll, import CilTools.BytecodeAnalysis namespace. Use CilReader.GetInstructions to get the collection of instructions from method, CilGraph.Create to get a graph that represents a flow of control between method's instructions, or CilAnalysis.MethodToText when you need to output method's CIL code as text. CilTools.BytecodeAnalysis.Extensions namespace provides an alternative syntax via extension methods.

Example

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using CilTools.BytecodeAnalysis;
using CilTools.BytecodeAnalysis.Extensions;

namespace CilToolsExample
{
    class Program
    {
        public static void Hello()
        {
            int a = 1;
            int b = 2;
            Console.WriteLine("Hello, World");
            Console.WriteLine("{0} + {1} = {2}",a,b,a+b);
        }

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            IEnumerable<CilInstruction> instructions = typeof(Program).GetMethod("Hello").GetInstructions();

            foreach (CilInstruction instr in instructions)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(instr.ToString());
            }
            Console.ReadKey();
        }

    }
}

/* Output:

nop
ldc.i4.1
stloc.0
ldc.i4.2
stloc.1
ldstr      "Hello, World"
call       void [mscorlib]System.Console::WriteLine(string)
nop
ldstr      "{0} \053 {1} \075 {2}"
ldloc.0
box        [mscorlib]System.Int32
ldloc.1
box        [mscorlib]System.Int32
ldloc.0
ldloc.1
add
box        [mscorlib]System.Int32
call       void [mscorlib]System.Console::WriteLine(string, object, object, object)
nop
ret
*/

CilTools.Runtime

Requirements: .NET Framework 4.5+

CilTools.Runtime loads CIL bytecode of methods in external process's CLR instance using ClrMD. This enables processing bytecode from external process with CilTools.BytecodeAnalysis library.

CilTools.Metadata

Requirements: .NET Framework 4.5+ or .NET Standard 2.0+

The library that supports inspecting the contents of .NET assembly via reflection without loading it into the current process. This enables inspecting assemblies for another target framework (such as .NET Standard assemblies when your application is on .NET Framework) or when some dependencies could not be resolved. This also means assemblies can be unloaded from memory when they are no longer needed.

CilTools.CommandLine

Requirements: .NET Core 3.1+

Cross-platform command line tool to view disassembled CIL code of methods in .NET assemblies. The application runs on any operating system supported by .NET Core. CilTools.CommandLine could print disassembled CIL into the console (standard output) or .il file. Syntax highlighting is supported for console output as long as the target console implementation supports setting console colors.

Install as global .NET tool:

dotnet tool install --global CilTools.CommandLine

For more information see readme file.

CilView