Standard Libraries (CLI)

The Standard Libraries are a set of libraries included in the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) in order to encapsulate many common functions, such as file reading and writing, XML document manipulation, exception handling, application globalization, network communication, threading, and reflection, which makes the programmer's job easier. It is much larger in scope than standard libraries for most other languages, including C++, and is comparable in scope and coverage to the standard libraries of Java.

The Standard Libraries are the Base Class Library (BCL), Runtime Infrastructure Library (both part of the kernel profile), Network Library, Reflection Library, XML Library (which with the first two listed libraries form the compact profile), Extended Array Library, Parallel Library, Floating Point Library and Vararg Library.

The Framework Class Library (FCL) is the original implementation of the Standard Libraries as the .NET Framework, which includes it, is the first implementation of the CLI.