Explain CLR in brief.

CLR stands for Common Language Runtime.

The CLR is a development platform. It provides a runtime, defines functionality in some libraries, and supports a set of programming languages. The CLR provides a runtime so that the softwares can utilize its services. The CLR Base Class Library allows interaction with the runtime. The CLR supports various programming languages, several standards and is itself been submitted as an open standard.

Describe how a .Net application is compiled and executed.

From the source code, the compiler generates Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) which is further used for the creation of an EXE or DLL. The CLR processes these at runtime. Thus, compiling is the process of generating this MSIL.

The way you do it in .Net is as follows:

Right-click and select Build / Ctrl-Shift-B / Build menu, Build command
F5 - compile and run the application.
Ctrl+F5 - compile and run the application without debugging.

Compilation can be done with Debug or Release configuration. The difference between these two is that in the debug configuration, only an assembly is generated without optimization. However, in release complete optimization is performed without debug symbols.

Describe the parts of assembly.

An assembly is a partially compiled code library. In .NET, an assembly is a portable executable and can be an EXE (process assembly) or a DLL (library assembly). An assembly can consist of one or more files or modules in various languages. It is used in deployment, versioning and security.

.NET common language runtime -

Overview of CLR integration.

The CLR (Common Language Runtime) integration is hosted in the Microsoft SQL Server 2005.
With CLR integration, stored procedures, triggers, user- defined functions, user-defined types, and user-defined aggregates in managed code, etc can be written.
As managed code compiles to native code before executing, significant performance can be achieved.
The SQL Server acts as an operating system for the CLR when it is hosted inside SQL Server.

Following are the steps to build a CLR stored procedure in SQL Server 2005

• Enable CLR integration in SQL Server 2005
• Create a CLR stored procedure Assembly
• Deploy the Assembly in SQL Server 2005
• Create and execute the CLR stored procedure in SQL Server 2005