Any pointers to smallest CLI runtime?

Question

I'm looking for smallest CLI subset implementation possible.

For now, even an interpreter will do, but I am really looking for a JITted runtime. I do not even need anything from the standard runtime apart from core classes like System.Object and Enum etc. It also needs to be portable and least dependent on underlying system.

I have considered mono and it is quite heavy. Cutting down mono down to my requirements is a huge task. I wonder if it has been done already. I'm currently looking at pnet, which includes a 'tiny' build.

Answer 1

Try Silverlight, though it's somewhat "in-browser".

Answer 2

Not sure if it has what you are looking for but Microsoft recently open sourced the .Net Micro Framework, might be worth a look.

Answer 3

The .NET Micro Framework is an IL interpreter, and is very small. It is not, however, fully featured - you don't get generics, and some things like properties work differently (there is no PropertyInfo).

Others:

• Compact Framework
• Silverlight

Answer 4

Your build script may turn out to be a PITA - but CrossNet might be a good idea. It compiles MSIL into C++.

So you could land up with no CLR at all :).

Answer 5

Take a look at the Mono Linker with mkbundle. The idea of it is that it will only link the pieces of Mono that you need, and no more.