How to view Intermediate Language for a .NET application

If you’re interested in what the common intermediate language (formerly known as MSIL but often just abbreviated to IL) looks like for your .NET application then here’s a quick how-to.

On Windows 8 simply search for ‘Developer Command Prompt for VS‘.

On Windows 7, search for ‘Visual Studio Command Prompt‘. You might need to run as administrator.

Then type ‘ildasm‘ in the console, which stands for IL Disassembler, and you should be presented with the next dialog window. From here goto Files > Open and choose your assembly (.dll or .exe) and you’ll be presented with something along the lines of the screenshot.

From here on simply double click whatever you want to view the IL for and that’s it.

Here’s an example of a simple program (a Hello World program), double clicking on Main, this is the IL.

If you don’t have Visual Studio installed you can also view the IL on dotnetfiddle.net.