Assembly Language

Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

Human-Readable Machine Language

Computers like ones and zeros…
0001110010000110
Humans like symbols…
ADD R6,R2,R6 ; increment index reg.

Assembler is a program that turns symbols into

machine instructions.
• ISA-specific:
close correspondence between symbols and instruction set
 mnemonics for opcodes
 labels for memory locations
• additional operations for allocating storage and initializing data

7-2
 Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

An Assembly Language Program

;
; Program to multiply a number by the constant 6
;
.ORIG x3050
LD R1, SIX
LD R2, NUMBER
AND R3, R3, #0 ; Clear R3. It will
; contain the product.
; The inner loop
;
AGAIN ADD R3, R3, R2
ADD R1, R1, #-1 ; R1 keeps track of
BRp AGAIN ; the iteration.
;
HALT
;
NUMBER .BLKW 1
SIX .FILL x0006
;
.END

7-3
 Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

LC-3 Assembly Language Syntax

Each line of a program is one of the following:
• an instruction
• an assember directive (or pseudo-op)
• a comment
Whitespace (between symbols) and case are ignored.
Comments (beginning with “;”) are also ignored.

An instruction has the following format:

LABEL OPCODE OPERANDS ; COMMENTS

optional mandatory
7-4
 Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

Opcodes and Operands

Opcodes
• reserved symbols that correspond to LC-3 instructions
• listed in Appendix A
 ex: ADD, AND, LD, LDR, …
Operands
• registers -- specified by Rn, where n is the register number
• numbers -- indicated by # (decimal) or x (hex)
• label -- symbolic name of memory location
• separated by comma
• number, order, and type correspond to instruction format
 ex:
ADD R1,R1,R3
ADD R1,R1,#3
LD R6,NUMBER
BRz LOOP

7-5
 Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

Labels and Comments

Label
• placed at the beginning of the line
• assigns a symbolic name to the address corresponding to line
 ex:
LOOP ADD R1,R1,#-1
BRp LOOP
Comment
• anything after a semicolon is a comment
• ignored by assembler
• used by humans to document/understand programs
• tips for useful comments:
 avoid restating the obvious, as “decrement R1”
 provide additional insight, as in “accumulate product in R6”
 use comments to separate pieces of program
7-6
 Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

Assembler Directives
Pseudo-operations
• do not refer to operations executed by program
• used by assembler
• look like instruction, but “opcode” starts with dot

Opcode Operand Meaning

.ORIG address starting address of program
.END end of program
.BLKW n allocate n words of storage
.FILL n allocate one word, initialize with
value n
.STRINGZ n-character allocate n+1 locations,
string initialize w/characters and null
terminator
7-7
 Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

Trap Codes
LC-3 assembler provides “pseudo-instructions” for
each trap code, so you don’t have to remember them.
Code Equivalent Description
HALT TRAP x25 Halt execution and print message to
console.
IN TRAP x23 Print prompt on console,
read (and echo) one character from keybd.
Character stored in R0[7:0].
OUT TRAP x21 Write one character (in R0[7:0]) to console.
GETC TRAP x20 Read one character from keyboard.
Character stored in R0[7:0].
PUTS TRAP x22 Write null-terminated string to console.
Address of string is in R0.

7-8
 Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

Style Guidelines
Use the following style guidelines to improve
the readability and understandability of your programs:
1. Provide a program header, with author’s name, date, etc.,
and purpose of program.
2. Start labels, opcode, operands, and comments in same column
for each line. (Unless entire line is a comment.)
3. Use comments to explain what each register does.
4. Give explanatory comment for most instructions.
5. Use meaningful symbolic names.
• Mixed upper and lower case for readability.
• ASCIItoBinary, InputRoutine, SaveR1
6. Provide comments between program sections.
7. Each line must fit on the page -- no wraparound or truncations.
• Long statements split in aesthetically pleasing manner.
7-9
 Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

Sample Program
Count the occurrences of a character in a file.
Remember this?

Count = 0
(R2 = 0) YES
Convert count to
Done?
(R1 ?= EOT)
ASCII character
(R0 = x30, R0 = R2 + R0)

Ptr = 1st file character NO

(R3 = M[x3012])
Print count
YES Match? NO (TRAP x21)
(R1 ?= R0)
Input char
from keybd
(TRAP x23)

HALT
Incr Count (TRAP x25)

Load char from file (R2 = R2 + 1)

(R1 = M[R3])

Load next char from file

(R3 = R3 + 1, R1 = M[R3])

7-10
 Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

Char Count in Assembly Language (1 of 3)

;
; Program to count occurrences of a character in a file.
; Character to be input from the keyboard.
; Result to be displayed on the monitor.
; Program only works if no more than 9 occurrences are found.
;
;
; Initialization
;
.ORIG x3000
AND R2, R2, #0 ; R2 is counter, initially 0
LD R3, PTR ; R3 is pointer to characters
GETC ; R0 gets character input
LDR R1, R3, #0 ; R1 gets first character
;
; Test character for end of file
;
TEST ADD R4, R1, #-4 ; Test for EOT (ASCII x04)
BRz OUTPUT ; If done, prepare the output

7-11
 Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

Char Count in Assembly Language (2 of 3)

;
; Test character for match. If a match, increment count.
;
NOT R1, R1
ADD R1, R1, R0 ; If match, R1 = xFFFF
NOT R1, R1 ; If match, R1 = x0000
BRnp GETCHAR ; If no match, do not increment
ADD R2, R2, #1
;
; Get next character from file.
;
GETCHAR ADD R3, R3, #1 ; Point to next character.
LDR R1, R3, #0 ; R1 gets next char to test
BRnzp TEST
;
; Output the count.
;
OUTPUT LD R0, ASCII ; Load the ASCII template
ADD R0, R0, R2 ; Covert binary count to ASCII
OUT ; ASCII code in R0 is displayed.
HALT ; Halt machine

7-12
 Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

Char Count in Assembly Language (3 of 3)

;
; Storage for pointer and ASCII template
;
ASCII .FILL x0030
PTR .FILL x4000
.END

7-13