ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE

CHAPTER FOUR
Why Assembly Language?

 Advantages of coding in Assembly Language

 results in faster execution

 generates smaller, more compact executable modules

 provides more control over handling particular

hardware requirements
Assembly Language: Current Usage
 Code that must interact directly with the hardware, for example in device
drivers

 Computer viruses, bootloaders or other items very close to the hardware

 Situations where no high-level language exists, on a new or specialized

processor

 Programs that need precise timing such as real-time programs like simulations,
flight navigation systems, and medical equipment

 When a stand-alone executable of compact size is required that must execute

without run-time components or libraries associated with a high-level
language
Features of Assembly Languages

 Program comments
 Reserved Words
 Identifiers
 Statements
 Directives
 Data types
Program Comments

 In assembly program comments are defined using ‘;’ character

 Example

 ADD AX, BX ; Add AX with BX

 Comments won’t be translated to machine codes

Reserved Words
 Are words that have special meaning to the assembler
 Reserved words can be categorized into:
 Instructions
 such as MOV, and ADD, which are operations that the computer can
execute
 Directives
 such as END or SEGMENT, which you use to provide information to the
assembler
 Operators
 such as FAR and SIZE, which you use in expressions
 Predefined Symbols
 such as @Data and @Model, which return information to your
program during the assembly
Identifiers
 The two types of identifiers are name and label:
 Name: refers to the address of a data item, such as COUNTER in
 COUNTER DB 0
 Label: refers to the address of an instruction, procedure, or segment, such as
L1: in
 L1: ADD BL, 25
 An identifier can use the following characters:
 Alphabetic letters, Digits and Special characters: Question mark (?),
underscore ( _ ), dollar ($), at (@), dot (.)
 The first character of an identifier must be an alphabetic letter or a special
character, except for the dot
 The names of registers, such as AH, BX, and DS, are reserved for referencing
those registers.
 Assembly Language is Not CASE Sensitive!!!
Statements
 The two types of statements are:
 Instructions, such as MOV and ADD, which the assembler translates
to object code

 Directives, which tell the assembler to perform a specific action,

such as define a data item

 The format for a statement

 [Identifier]Operation[operand (s)][; comment]

 Example
 Instruction: L1: MOV AX, 0 ;store 0 in Ax
Directives
 Enable you to control the way in which a source program assembles
and lists
 Act only during the assembly of a program and generate no
machine-executable code
 Are part of the assembler’s syntax, but are not related to the
microprocessor instruction set
 The most common directives are:
 The PAGE and TITLE Listing Directives
 SEGMENT Directive
 PROC Directive
 END Directive
 ASSUME Directive
PAGE Directive
 PAGE directive designates the maximum number of lines to list on a
page and the maximum number of characters on a line

 Its format is
 PAGE [Length] [, Width]
 Ex. page 60,132

 Under a typical assembler, the number of lines per page may range
from 10 through 255, and the number of characters per line may
range from 60 through 132

 Omission of a PAGE statement causes the assembler to default to

PAGE 50, 80
TITLE directive

 TITLE directive to cause a title for a program to

print on line 2 of each page of the program listing

 Its format is
 TITLE filename[comment]
 Example
 TITLE ASMSORT Assembly Program to sort CD titles
Segment Directives
 Are the directives used to define segments

 Format

Segment-name SEGMENT [align] [combine] [‘class’]

…
Segment-name ENDS

 Segment-name: must be unique

 SEGMENT : defines start of the segment
 ENDS: indicates the end of a segment
Segment Directives Cont’d
 The SEGMENT statement may contain three types of options:
 Alignment
 indicates the boundary on which the segment is to begin
 The typical requirement is PARA as well as the default
 Other align types include byte, word, dword & page
 Combine
 indicates whether to combine the segment with other segments when they are
linked after assembly
 Combine types are STACK, COMMON, PUBLIC, and AT expression
 Class
 enclosed in apostrophes, is used to group related segments when linking
 The classes ‘code’ for the code segment, ‘data’ for the data segment, and
‘stack’ for the stack segment
ASSUME Directive

 used to tell the assembler the purpose of each

segment in the program

 Format

 ASSUME SS:stacksegname, DS:datasegname, CS:codesegname, …

 is coded in the code segment

PROC Directive
 Used to define procedures
proc-name PROC [operand]
…
proc-name ENDP

 PROC : indicates the start of a procedure

 ENDP: indicates the end of a procedure
 operand: could be ‘FAR’ or ‘NEAR’
 If declared FAR, the program loader uses this procedure as the entry point
for the first instruction to execute
 A code segment can have multiple procedures, but only one of the routines
can be declared as ‘FAR’ others will be set ‘NEAR’ by default
END Directives

 ENDS directive
 ends a segment

 ENDP directive
 ends a procedure

 END directive
 ends the entire program
Sample Assembly Program Structure
page 60, 132
TITLE [Link] Segments of an .EXE program
; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
STACK SEGMENT PARA STACK ‘Stack’
….
STACK ENDS
;---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DATASEG SEGMENT PARA ‘Data’
…
DATASEG ENDS
;----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CODESEG SEGMENT PARA ‘Code’
MAIN PROC FAR
ASSUME SS:stack, DS:dataseg, CS:codeseg
…
MAIN ENDP ; End of procedure
CODESEG ENDS ; End of segment
END MAIN ; End of program
Simplified Segment Directives

 Some assemblers provide shortcuts in defining segments

 For example, in TASM to use the shortcuts you have to

initialize the memory model before defining any
segment

 The general format to define a memory model

.MODEL memory-model
Simplified Segment Directives …
MODEL Number of Code Segments Number of Data Segments
Tiny 1 segment < 64Kb
Small 1<64k 1<64k
Medium Any number, any size 1<64k
Compact 1<64k Any number, any size
Large Any number, any size Any number, any size

 The .MODEL directive automatically generates the required ASSUME

statement for all models
 .STACK, .DATA, .CODE are used to define the different segments
Basic Structure of
Assembly Programs
.MODEL SMALL ; Defining the model you are going to use throughout your program
.STACK 100 ; Defining your stack segment and its corresponding size
.DATA ; A directive used to define your data segment

; your data definition goes here

.CODE ; A directive used to define the code segment

MAIN PROC ; Defining the main function/procedure where the execution starts

; your code goes here

MOV AX, 4C00H ; An interrupt instruction which tells the assembler this is end of
INT 21H processing

MAIN ENDP ; A directive used to end the main procedure

END MAIN ; A directive which tells the assembler that this is end of the program

NB:-
 In every program you have to set your model before any instruction
 You can change the stack size based on your program
 You can leave the ‘.DATA’ directive if you don’t have any data definitions
 Any instruction written under the end of processing instruction is not going to be executed
Data Definition
 A data item may contain an undefined value, or a constant, or a
character string, or a numeric value

 The format for data definition is:

 [name] Dn expression
 Name: identifier
 Dn: Directives can be:
 DB: byte DQ:quadword
 DW: word DT:tenbytes
 DD: doubleword
 each of which explicitly indicates the length of the defined item
 Expression:
 can be unnitialized: ?
 can be assigned a constant: such as 25, 21,’a’,”Hello”
Defining Numeric Data

 X DB 25

 X DB ? ; uninitialized

 X DB 25, 03, 45 ;defined in adjacent bytes

 X refers to the first 1-byte constant, 25, and a reference to X+1 is
to the second constant, 03 and so on
Defining Numeric Data …

 The expression also permits duplication of constants

 Definition Format
 [name] Dn repeat-count DUP (Expression)

 Examples
 Y DB 5 DUP (2) ; Five bytes containing 2

 X DW 10 DUP (?) ;Ten words, uninitialized

 Z DB 3 DUP (5 DUP (4)) ;generates five copies of the digit 4

(44444) and duplicates that value three times, giving fifteen 4s in all
Defining Character Data

 A string can be defined using either single or double quotes

 DB is the conventional format for defining character data of

any length

 Example

 ch DB ‘B’

 Name DB ‘Abebe’
Equate Directives

 EQU directives are used for redefining symbolic names with

other names and numeric values with names

 These directives do not generate any data storage

 Equal-sign Directive
 PI = 3.1416

 EQU Directive
 X EQU 12

 Y DB X DUP(?)
Numeric Literals
 Binary:
 uses the binary digits 0 and 1, followed by the radix specifier B. Example 01011010B
 Decimal:
 uses the decimal digits 0 through 9, optionally followed by the radix specifier D, such as
125 or 125D.
 the assembler converts your decimal values to binary object code and represents them in
hexadecimal. For example, a definition of decimal 125 hex 7D.
 Hexadecimal:
 uses the hex digits 0 through F, followed by the radix specifier H.
 the first digit of a hex constant must be 0 to 9
 Examples are 3DH and 0DE8H, which the assembler stores as 3D and (with bytes in
reverse sequence) E80D, respectively.
 Real:
 The assembler converts a given real value (a decimal or hex constant followed by the
radix specifier R) into floating-point format for use with a numeric coprocessor.