IL2X (Currently Experimental)

Translates .NET IL to supported and unsuported .NET platforms and architectures. (Powered by Mono.Cecil)

NOTE: this project is currently on hold while CS2X is focused on: https://github.com/reignstudios/CS2X

Goals

This project will focus on translating .NET IL for non-supported .NET targets. Portibility is a huge focus.

• .NET Standard compatibility
• Native C performance
• C89: modern, legacy and embedded platforms (x86, MIPS, SPARK, RISC-V, PPC, AVR, etc)
• CC65: 6502 platforms (Atari, C64, NES, Apple II, etc) [CS2X may be better suited]]
• SDCC: Many targets (ColecoVision, etc) [CS2X may be better suited]
• Assembly: CP1610 (Intellivision) [CS2X may be better suited]]
• Retarget: Custom assembly targets via plugin system (FPGA CPU, 16bit bytes, etc)
• Custom Standard lib(s) for various targets.
• Documentation

Project libraries

• IL2X.Core: .NET IL translator/compiler lib
• IL2X.CLI: CLI interface for IL2X.Core
• IL2X.Portable.CoreLib: The IL2X runtime system CoreLib

What IL2X does .NET Core / CoreRT / Mono doesn't

You're asking yourself why this project exists?

• True portability. The majority of platforms don't require explicit support for each one as portable C does that already. There are special case exceptions and IL2X will try to take care of those for you. Such as storing string literals in ROM etc.
• Statically link the entire programs dependencies (CoreRT does this to some extent as well). Each ".dll" is translated to a ".h" file and each ".exe" is translated to a ".c" file that includes all its dependencies as headers. This allows you to ship a single lightweight binary with no external libraries. Later support for closed source dynamic linked libs will be supported.
• IL2X can be significantly faster than all currently available .NET runtimes when it comes to heavy number crunching thanks to the awesome C optimizers available today and lighter weight code gen.
• Allows you to directly invoke C methods statically for better optimizations vs using DllImport.
• Supports many C compilers allowing you to choose what's best.

Is this project ready for general use?

Short answer is no. Once enough core runtime parts are working a document will be made describing what features are implemented.