Metadata Storage
Assemblies contain tables of metadata. These tables are described by the CIL specification. The metadata tables will have zero or more entries and the position of an entry determines its index. When CIL code uses metadata it does so through a metadata token. This is a 32-bit value where the top 8 bits identify the appropriate metadata table, and the remaining 24 bits give the index of the metadata in the table. The Framework SDK contains a sample called metainfo that will list the metadata tables in an assembly, however, this information is rarely of use to a developer. Metadata in an assembly may be viewed using the ILDASM tool provided by the .NET Framework SDK.
Read more about this topic: Metadata (CLI)
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