Metadatas of the .NET Framework

In the .NET Framework architecture, all CIL is Self-Describing through .NET metadata. The CLR checks on metadata to ensure that the correct method is called. Metadata is usually generated by language compilers but developers can create their own metadata through custom attributes.
Metadata contains information about the assembly, and is also used to implement the reflective programming capabilities of .NET Framework.
.NET metadata, in the Microsoft .NET framework, refers to certain data structures embedded within the Common Intermediate Language code that describes the high-level structure of the code. Metadata describes all classes and class members that are defined in the assembly, and the classes and class members that the current assembly will call from another assembly. Learn more of this with the austin .net developer.
The metadata for a method contains the complete description of the method, including the class and the assembly that contains the class, the return type and all of the method parameters.
A .NET language compiler will generate the metadata and store this in the assembly containing the CIL. When the CLR executes CIL it will check to make sure that the metadata of the called method is the same as the metadata that is stored in the calling method. This ensures that a method can only be called with exactly the right number of parameters and exactly the right parameter types. Check out what the austin .net developer has to offer about this.
Within the .NET metadata, there are two types of attributes, custom and pseudo custom attributes, and to the developer these have the same syntax. Attributes in code are messages to the compiler to generate metadata. In CIL, metadata such as inheritance modifiers, scope modifiers, and almost anything that isn't either opcodes or streams, are also referred to as attributes.
Custom attributes are used by the .NET Framework extensively. Windows Communication Framework uses attributes to define service contracts, ASP.NET uses these to expose methods as web services, LINQ to SQL uses them to define the mapping of classes to the underlying relational schema, Visual Studio uses them to group together properties of an object, the class developer indicates the category for the object's class by applying the [Category] custom attribute. Learn more of this with the austin .net developer.
A pseudo-custom attribute is used just like regular custom attributes but they do not have a custom handler; rather the compiler has intrinsic awareness of the attributes and handles the code marked with such attributes differently. Attributes such as Serializable and Obsolete are implemented as pseudo-custom attributes. If you want more information about the .NET Framework and its structure, then visit the austin .net developer for more details.

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