Common Language Runtime

The CLR (Common Language Runtime) or the .NET runtime is the runtime execution environment of .NET Framework. Code running under the control of the CLR is often termed managed code and benefits from features such as cross-language integration, cross-language exception handling, enhanced security, versioning and deployment support, a simplified model for component interaction, and debugging and profiling services. The runtime provides the following benefits:

· Performance improvements.

· The ability to easily use components developed in other languages.

· Extensible types provided by a class library.

· Language features such as inheritance, interfaces, and overloading for object-oriented programming.

· Support for explicit free threading that allows creation of multithreaded, scalable applications.

· Support for structured exception handling.

· Support for custom attributes.

· Garbage collection.

· Use of delegates instead of function pointers for increased type safety and security.

Runtime can be understood as a collection of external services that are required to execute a given compiled unit of code.