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Difference Between Managed and Unmanaged Code

Managed code runs within a managed runtime environment like the CLR and cannot be directly accessed from outside. It receives services like garbage collection and type safety. Unmanaged code compiles directly to machine code and runs natively, requiring the programmer to handle memory management, errors, and safety. Debug mode includes symbolic debugging information and matches code to instructions for stepping, while release mode optimizes without debug data for faster execution.

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113 views

Difference Between Managed and Unmanaged Code

Managed code runs within a managed runtime environment like the CLR and cannot be directly accessed from outside. It receives services like garbage collection and type safety. Unmanaged code compiles directly to machine code and runs natively, requiring the programmer to handle memory management, errors, and safety. Debug mode includes symbolic debugging information and matches code to instructions for stepping, while release mode optimizes without debug data for faster execution.

Uploaded by

christinesharon
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Difference between managed and unmanaged

code
What is Managed Code ?

Managed code is the code that is written to target the services of the
managed runtime execution environment such as Common Language
Runtime in .Net Technology.
The Managed Code running under a Common Language Runtime cannot be
accessed outside the runtime environment as well as cannot call directly
from outside the runtime environment. It refers to a contract of cooperation
between natively executing code and the runtime. It offers services like
garbage collection, run-time type checking, reference checking etc. By using
managed code you can avoid many typical programming mistakes that lead
to security holes and unstable applications, also, many unproductive
programming tasks are automatically taken care of, such as type safety
checking, memory management, destruction of unused Objects etc.
What is Unmanaged Code ?
Unmanaged code compiles straight to machine code and directly executed by
the Operating System. The generated code runs natively on the host
processor and the processor directly executes the code generated by the
compiler. It is always compiled to target a specific architecture and will only
run on the intended platform. So, if you want to run the same code on
different architecture then you will have to recompile the code using that
particular architecture.
Unmanaged executable files are basically a binary image, x86 code, directly
loaded into memory. This approach typically results in fastest code
execution, but diagnosing and recovery from errors might difficult and time
consuming in most cases. The memory allocation, type safety, security, etc

needs to be taken care of by the programmer and this will lead unmanaged
code prone to memory leaks like buffer overruns, pointer overrides etc.
All code compiled by traditional C/C++ compilers are Unmanaged Code.
COM components, ActiveX interfaces, and Win32 API functions are examples
of unmanaged code. Managed code is code written in many high-level
programming languages that are available for use with the Microsoft .NET
Framework, including VB.NET, C#, J#, JScript.NET etc. Since Visual C++ can
be compiled to either managed or unmanaged code it is possible to mix the
two in the same application.
You can study Microsoft .Net Framework step by step from the following
link :

Difference between a Debug and Release


build
Debug and Release ?

Debug mode and Release mode are different configurations for building
your .Net project. Programmers generally use the Debug mode for
debugging step by step their .Net project and select the Release mode for
the final build of Assembly file (.dll or .exe).
The Debug mode does not optimize the binary it produces because the
relationship between source code and generated instructions is more
complex. This allows breakpoints to be set accurately and allows a
programmer to step through the code one line at a time. The Debug
configuration of your program is compiled with full symbolic debug
information which help the debugger figure out where it is in the source
code.
Is Release mode is faster than Debug mode ?
The Release mode enables optimizations and generates without any debug
data, so it is fully optimized. . Lots of your code could be completely
removed or rewritten in Release mode. The resulting executable will most

likely not match up with your written code. Because of this release mode will
run faster than debug mode due to the optimizations.
What is .pdb files ?
Debug information can be generated in a .pdb (Program Database File) file
depending on the compiler options that are used. A .pdb file holds debugging
and project state information that allows incremental linking of a Debug
configuration of your program. A Program Database File is created when you
compile a VB.Net or C# program with debug mode.
In Asp.Net ?
It is important to note that Debug mode or Release mode in a web
application is controlled by the web.config file, not your settings within Visual
Studio.
e.g. <system.web>
<compilation debug="true">

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