What is Assembler?
Software that converts a program written in assembly language into machine instruction bit patterns. It turns labels into addresses and expands pseudo-instructions into real instructions.
Field: ISA & Assembly
Assembler in the explanations
Assembly language writes machine instructions as readable mnemonics such as "add a0, a0, a1", and an assembler converts them into instruction bit patterns.
What is the relationship between assembly language and mach…Writing "li a0, 0x12345678" in assembly makes the assembler expand it into these two instructions as needed.
In RISC-V, what is the usual way to put a 32-bit constant t…For a more distant target, the assembler rewrites the code as a short branch on the inverted condition that skips over a jal, which reaches about ±1 MiB.
RISC-V conditional branches (B-type) encode the distance as…
Questions that mention Assembler (5)
- Which real instruction does the assembler use for the RISC-V pseudo-instruction "nop" (do nothing)?
- What is the relationship between assembly language and machine code?
- In RISC-V, what is the usual way to put a 32-bit constant that does not fit in a 12-bit immediate (e.g. 0x12345678) into a register?
- RISC-V conditional branches (B-type) encode the distance as a 13-bit signed byte offset whose lowest bit is always 0 and not stored. Roughly what range can a branch reach directly?
- What is the usual sequence for producing an executable from a C program?
Related terms
Pseudo-instruction Instruction set architecture (ISA) Object file Linker Addressing mode Application binary interface (ABI) Branch delay slot Callee-saved register Caller-saved register Calling convention