CLI languages are computer programming languages that are used to produce libraries and programs that conform to the

Common Language Infrastructure The Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) is an open specification and technical standard originally developed by Microsoft and standardized by ISO/ IEC (ISO/IEC 23271) and Ecma International (ECMA 335) that describes executable code and a ...

(CLI) specifications. With some notable exceptions, most CLI languages compile entirely to the

Common Intermediate Language Common Intermediate Language (CIL), formerly called Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) or Intermediate Language (IL), is the intermediate language binary instruction set defined within the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) specification. ...

(CIL), an intermediate language that can be executed using the

Common Language Runtime The Common Language Runtime (CLR), the virtual machine component of Microsoft .NET Framework, manages the execution of .NET programs. Just-in-time compilation converts the managed code (compiled intermediate language code) into machine instruc ...

, implemented by

.NET Framework The .NET Framework (pronounced as "''dot net"'') is a proprietary software framework developed by Microsoft that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It was the predominant implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) until bein ...

.NET Core The domain name net is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) used in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The name is derived from the word ''network'', indicating it was originally intended for organizations involved in networking technologies ...

, and Mono. Some of these languages also require the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR). As the program is being executed, the CIL code is just-in-time compiled (and cached) to the machine code appropriate for the architecture on which the program is running. This step can be omitted manually by caching at an earlier stage using an "ahead of time" compiler such as Microsoft's ngen.exe and Mono's "-aot" option.

Notable CLI languages

Current languages

* Ada for .Net: Ada is a multi-paradigm language, that is strongly focused on code safety, maintainability and correctness. * C#: Most widely used CLI language, bearing strong similarities to

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

, and some similarity to

Object Pascal Object Pascal is an extension to the programming language Pascal that provides object-oriented programming (OOP) features such as classes and methods. The language was originally developed by Apple Computer as ''Clascal'' for the Lisa Work ...

(

Delphi Delphi (; ), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), in ancient times was a sacred precinct that served as the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient classical world. The oracl ...

) and C++. Implementations provided by

, and Mono. * C++/CLI: A version of C++ including extensions for using Common Language Runtime (CLR) objects. Provides full support for

and library only support for

. Produces mixed-mode code that produces native code for C++ objects. The compiler is provided by Microsoft. *ClojureCLR: A port of Clojure to the CLI, part of the Clojure project. *

Component Pascal Component Pascal is a programming language in the tradition of Niklaus Wirth's Pascal, Modula-2, Oberon and Oberon-2. It bears the name of the language Pascal and preserves its heritage, but is incompatible with Pascal. Instead, it is a minor ...

: A CLI-compliant

Oberon Oberon () is a king of the fairies in medieval and Renaissance literature. He is best known as a character in William Shakespeare's play ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'', in which he is King of the Fairies and spouse of Titania, Queen of the Fair ...

dialect. It is a strongly typed language in the heritage of Pascal and Modula-2 but with powerful object-oriented extensions. *

Eiffel Eiffel may refer to: Places * Eiffel Peak, a summit in Alberta, Canada * Champ de Mars – Tour Eiffel station, Paris, France; a transit station Structures * Eiffel Tower, in Paris, France, designed by Gustave Eiffel * Eiffel Bridge, Ungheni, ...

: Purely object-oriented language, focused on software quality, includes integrated design by contract and multiple inheritance. CLI compliant. * F#: A multi-paradigm CLI language supporting

functional programming In computer science, functional programming is a programming paradigm where programs are constructed by applying and composing functions. It is a declarative programming paradigm in which function definitions are trees of expressions that ...

and imperative

object-oriented programming Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of " objects", which can contain data and code. The data is in the form of fields (often known as attributes or ''properties''), and the code is in the form of ...

disciplines. Variant of ML and is largely compatible with

OCaml OCaml ( , formerly Objective Caml) is a general-purpose, multi-paradigm programming language which extends the Caml dialect of ML with object-oriented features. OCaml was created in 1996 by Xavier Leroy, Jérôme Vouillon, Damien Doligez, D ...

. Implementations provided by

, and Mono. * F*: A dependently typed language based on F#. * Fantom: A language compiling to .NET and to th
JVM
*

IronPython IronPython is an implementation of the Python programming language targeting the .NET Framework and Mono. Jim Hugunin created the project and actively contributed to it up until Version 1.0 which was released on September 5, 2006. IronPython 2.0 ...

: An open-source CLI implementation of Python, built on the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR). * IronScheme - a

R6RS Scheme is a dialect of the Lisp family of programming languages. Scheme was created during the 1970s at the MIT AI Lab and released by its developers, Guy L. Steele and Gerald Jay Sussman, via a series of memos now known as the Lambda Papers. ...

-compliant Scheme implementation built on the DLR * Limnor Studio: Is a general-purpose codeless and

visual The visual system comprises the sensory organ (the eye) and parts of the central nervous system (the retina containing photoreceptor cells, the optic nerve, the optic tract and the visual cortex) which gives organisms the sense of sight ...

programming system. The aim is to enable

users Ancient Egyptian roles * User (ancient Egyptian official), an ancient Egyptian nomarch (governor) of the Eighth Dynasty * Useramen, an ancient Egyptian vizier also called "User" Other uses * User (computing), a person (or software) using a ...

to create computer

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

without coding in a textual

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming l ...

. It can be extended by software developers. * Oxygene: An

-based CLI language. * PascalABC.NET: An

-based language implemented on the .NET Framework. * PeachPie: A compiler of PHP to .NET and .NET Core. Successor of Phalanger. * PowerBuilder: Can target CLI since version 11.1. * RemObjects Mercury: An Visual Basic .Net-based CLI language. *

Small Basic Microsoft Small Basic is a programming language, interpreter and associated IDE. Microsoft's simplified variant of BASIC, it is designed to help students who have learnt visual programming languages such as Scratch learn text-based programming ...

: A BASIC-derived programming language created by Microsoft for teaching programming. Supported releases target

versions 3.5 and 4.5. *

Silverfrost FTN95 Silverfrost FTN95: Fortran for Windows is a compiler for the Fortran programming language for computers running Microsoft Windows. It generates executable programs from human-written source code for native IA-32 Win32, x86-64 (from version 8.00 ...

: An implementation of Fortran 95. *

Swift Swift or SWIFT most commonly refers to: * SWIFT, an international organization facilitating transactions between banks ** SWIFT code * Swift (programming language) * Swift (bird), a family of birds It may also refer to: Organizations * SWIFT ...

via the RemObjects ''Silver'' compiler & multi-platform targeting. *

Synergy DBL Synergy DBL (Data Business Language) is a compiled, imperative programming language designed for business use. The language was originally called DBL; later it was referred to as Synergy Language; as of 2012 the official name is Synergy DBL. It is ...

.NET: an object oriented CLI compliant implementation of DBL and

DIBOL DIBOL or Digital's Business Oriented Language is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language, designed for use in Management Information Systems (MIS) software development. It has a syntax similar to FORTRAN and BASIC, alon ...

produced by Synergex. * Team Developer: SQLWindows Application Language (SAL) since Team Developer 6.0. *

Visual Basic Visual Basic is a name for a family of programming languages from Microsoft. It may refer to: * Visual Basic .NET (now simply referred to as "Visual Basic"), the current version of Visual Basic launched in 2002 which runs on .NET * Visual Basic (c ...

(VB.NET): A redesigned dialect of

. Implementations provided by

, and Mono. *Visual COBOL: An enhanced version of

COBOL COBOL (; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily ...

ported to the

and to the JVM, produced by Micro Focus. *

PowerShell PowerShell is a task automation and configuration management program from Microsoft, consisting of a command-line shell and the associated scripting language. Initially a Windows component only, known as Windows PowerShell, it was made open-sou ...

: An object-oriented

command-line A command-line interpreter or command-line processor uses a command-line interface (CLI) to receive command (computing), commands from a user in the form of lines of text. This provides a means of setting parameters for the environment, invokin ...

shell. PowerShell can dynamically load .NET assemblies that were written in any CLI language. PowerShell itself uses a unique scripting syntax and uses curly-braces, similar to other C-based languages. * XSharp: X# is an open source development language for Microsoft .NET, based on the xBase language. It comes in different flavours, such as Core, Visual Objects, Vulcan.NET, xBase++, Harbour, Foxpro and more.

Abandoned or deprecated languages

* A#: CLI implementation of Ada. *

Axum Axum, or Aksum (pronounced: ), is a town in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia with a population of 66,900 residents (as of 2015). It is the site of the historic capital of the Aksumite Empire, a naval and trading power that ruled the whole region ...

: An

actor model The actor model in computer science is a mathematical model of concurrent computation that treats ''actor'' as the universal primitive of concurrent computation. In response to a message it receives, an actor can: make local decisions, create mor ...

concurrent programming language. * Boo: A

statically typed In computer programming, a type system is a logical system comprising a set of rules that assigns a property called a type to every "term" (a word, phrase, or other set of symbols). Usually the terms are various constructs of a computer program ...

CLI language, inspired by Python. * Cobra: A CLI language with static and dynamic typing, design by contract and built-in

unit testing In computer programming, unit testing is a software testing method by which individual units of source code—sets of one or more computer program modules together with associated control data, usage procedures, and operating procedures&m ...

. * GrGen.NET - a CLI language for

graph rewriting In computer science, graph transformation, or graph rewriting, concerns the technique of creating a new graph out of an original graph algorithmically. It has numerous applications, ranging from software engineering ( software construction and also ...

* IronRuby: An open-source CLI implementation of

Ruby A ruby is a pinkish red to blood-red colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum (aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sapp ...

, built on the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR). * J#: A CLI-compliant implementation of

. The compiler is provided by Microsoft. J# has been discontinued. The last version shipped with Visual Studio 2005, and was supported until 2015. *

JScript .NET JScript .NET is a .NET programming language developed by Microsoft. The primary differences between JScript and JScript .NET can be summarized as follows: Firstly, JScript is a scripting language, and as such programs (or more suggestively, ...

: A CLI implementation of

ECMAScript ECMAScript (; ES) is a JavaScript standard intended to ensure the interoperability of web pages across different browsers. It is standardized by Ecma International in the documenECMA-262 ECMAScript is commonly used for client-side scriptin ...

version 3, compatible with

JScript JScript is Microsoft's legacy software, legacy dialect of the ECMAScript standard that is used in Microsoft's Internet Explorer 11 and older. JScript is implemented as an Active Scripting engine. This means that it can be "plugged in" to OLE Aut ...

. Contains extensions for

static typing In computer programming, a type system is a logical system comprising a set of rules that assigns a property called a type to every "term" (a word, phrase, or other set of symbols). Usually the terms are various constructs of a computer progra ...

. Deprecated in favor of

Managed JScript JScript is Microsoft's legacy software, legacy dialect of the ECMAScript standard that is used in Microsoft's Internet Explorer 11 and older. JScript is implemented as an Active Scripting engine. This means that it can be "plugged in" to OLE Aut ...

. *

: A CLI implementation of

built on the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR). Conforms to

version 3. * Managed Extensions for C++: A version of C++ targeting the Common Language Runtime (CLR). Deprecated in favor of C++/CLI. *

Niecza Raku is a member of the Perl family of programming languages. Formerly known as Perl 6, it was renamed in October 2019. Raku introduces elements of many modern and historical languages. Compatibility with Perl was not a goal, though a compatibili ...

- A CLI implementation of

Perl 6 Raku is a member of the Perl family of programming languages. Formerly known as Perl 6, it was renamed in October 2019. Raku introduces elements of many modern and historical languages. Compatibility with Perl was not a goal, though a compatibili ...

. * Nemerle: A multi-paradigm language similar to C#, OCaml and Lisp. * Phalanger: An implementation of

PHP PHP is a General-purpose programming language, general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementati ...

with extensions for ASP.NET. Predecessor of PeachPie. *

UnityScript Unity is a cross-platform game engine developed by Unity Technologies, first announced and released in June 2005 at Apple Worldwide Developers Conference as a Mac OS X game engine. The engine has since been gradually extended to support a varie ...

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

-like language, specific to the

Unity game engine Unity is a cross-platform game engine developed by Unity Technologies, first announced and released in June 2005 at Apple Worldwide Developers Conference as a Mac OS X game engine. The engine has since been gradually extended to support a va ...

. Deprecated in favor of C#.

* IKVM.NET: A

Java virtual machine A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a virtual machine that enables a computer to run Java programs as well as programs written in other languages that are also compiled to Java bytecode. The JVM is detailed by a specification that formally describ ...

that can be used to run

and other JVM languages (e.g., JVM like Groovy, Scala) upon CLI implementations.

References

{{Common Language Infrastructure Common Language Infrastructure CLI

Notable CLI languages

Current languages

Abandoned or deprecated languages

Related

See also

References