X86 Instructions and ARM Architecture

Some of the most important and most frequently used instructions are those that move data. Without them, there would be no way for registers or memory to even have anything in them to operate on.

Data transfer instructions

Move

mov stands for move. Despite its name the mov instruction copies the src operand into the dest operand. After the operation both operands contain the same contents.

Modified flags

• No FLAGS are modified by this instruction

Example

.data
value:
.long2
.text
.globl_start
_start:
movl$6,%eax# eax ≔ 6
# └───────┐
movw%eax,value# value ≔ eax
# └───────────┐
movl$0,%ebx# ebx ≔ 0 │ │
# ┌──┘ │
movb%al,%bl# bl ≔ al │
# %ebx is now 6 │
 # ┌─────┘
movlvalue,%ebx# ebx ≔ value

movl$value,%esi# ebx ≔ @value
# %esi is now the address of value
xorl%ebx,%ebx# ebx ≔ ebx ⊻ ebx
 # %ebx is now 0
movwvalue(,%ebx,1),%bx# bx ≔ value[ebx*1]
# %ebx is now 6
# Linux sys_exit
movl$1,%eax# eax ≔ 1
xorl%ebx,%ebx# ebx ≔ 0
int$0x80

Data swap

xchg stands for exchange. The xchg instruction swaps the src operand with the dest operand. It is like doing three mov operations:

1. from dest to a temporary (another register),
2. then from src to dest, and finally
3. from the temporary storage to src,

except that no register needs to be reserved for temporary storage.

This exchange pattern of three consecutive mov instructions can be detected by the DFU present in some architectures, which will trigger special treatment. The opcode for  xchg is shorter though.

Operands

Any combination of register or memory operands, except that at most one operand may be a memory operand. You cannot exchange two memory blocks.

Modified Flags

None.

Example

.data
 value:
 .long2
 .text
 .global_start
 _start:
 movl$54,%ebx
 xorl%eax,%eax
 xchglvalue,%ebx
 # %ebx is now 2
 # value is now 54
 xchgw%ax,value
 # Value is now 0
 # %eax is now 54
 xchgb%al,%bl
 # %ebx is now 54
 # %eax is now 2
 xchgwvalue(%eax),%ax
 # value is now 0x00020000 = 131072
 # %eax is now 0
 # Linux sys_exit 
 mov$1,%eax
 xorl%ebx,%ebx
 int$0x80

Application

If one of the operands is a memory address, then the operation has an implicit lock prefix, that is, the exchange operation is atomic. This can have a large performance penalty.

However, on some platforms exchanging two registers will trigger the register renamer. The register renamer is a unit in that merely renames registers, so no data actually have to be moved. This is super fast (branded as “zero-latency”). Renaming registers could be useful since

• some instructions either require certain operands to be located in specific register, but data will be needed later on,
• or encoding some opcodes is shorter if one of the operands is the accumulator register.

It is also worth noting that the common nop (no operation) instruction, 0x90, is the opcode for xchgl %eax, %eax.

Data swap based on comparison

cmpxchg stands for compare and exchange. Exchange is misleading as no data are actually exchanged.

The cmpxchg instruction has one implicit operand: the al/ax/eax depending on the size of arg1.

1. The instruction compares arg1 to al/ax/eax.
2. If they are equal, arg1 becomes arg2. (arg1 = arg2)
3. Otherwise, al/ax/eax becomes arg1.

Unlike xchg there is no implicit lock prefix, and if the instruction is required to be atomic,  lock has to be prefixed.

Operands

arg2 has to be a register. arg1 may be either a register or memory operand.

Modified flags

• ZF ≔ arg1 = (al|ax|eax) [depending on arg1’s size]
• CF, PF, AF, SF, OF are altered, too.

Application

The following example shows how to use the cmpxchg instruction to create a spin lock which will be used to protect the result variable. The last thread to grab the spin lock will get to set the final value of result:

example for a spin lock

Move with zero extend

movz stands for move with zero extension. Like the regular mov the movz instruction copies data from the src operand to the dest operand, but the the remaining bits in dest that are not provided by srv are filled with zeros. This instruction is useful for copying a small, unsigned value to a bigger register.

Operands

Dest has to be a register, and src can be either another register or a memory operand. For this operation to make sense dest has to be larger than src.

Modified flags

There are none.

Example

.data
 byteval:
 .byte204
 .text
 .global_start
 _start:
 movzbwbyteval,%ax
 # %eax is now 204
 movzwl%ax,%ebx
 # %ebx is now 204
 movzblbyteval,%esi
 # %esi is now 204
 # Linux sys_exit 
 mov$1,%eax
 xorl%ebx,%ebx
 int$0x80

Move with sign extend

movsx stands for move with sign extension. The movsx instruction copies the src operand in the dest operand and pads the remaining bits not provided by src with the sign bit (the MSB) of src.

This instruction is useful for copying a signed small value to a bigger register.

Operands

movsx accepts the same operands as movzx.

Modified Flags

movsx does not modify any flags, either.

Example

.data
 byteval:
 .byte-24# = 0xe8
 .text
 .global_start
 _start:
 movsbwbyteval,%ax
 # %ax is now -24 = 0xffe8
 movswl%ax,%ebx
 # %ebx is now -24 = 0xffffffe8
 movsblbyteval,%esi
 # %esi is now -24 = 0xffffffe8
 # Linux sys_exit 
 mov$1,%eax
 xorl%ebx,%ebx
 int$0x80

Move String

Move byte.

The movsb instruction copies one byte from the memory location specified in esi to the location specified in edi. If the direction flag is cleared, then esi and edi are incremented after the operation. Otherwise, if the direction flag is set, then the pointers are decremented. In that case the copy would happen in the reverse direction, starting at the highest address and moving toward lower addresses until ecx is zero.

Operands

There are no explicit operands, but

• ecx determines the number of iterations,
• esi specifies the source address,
• edi the destination address, and
• DF is used to determine the direction (it can be altered by the cld and std instruction).

Modified flags

No flags are modified by this instruction.

Example

section.text
 ; copy mystr into mystr2
 movesi,mystr; loads address of mystr into esi
 movedi,mystr2; loads address of mystr2 into edi
 cld; clear direction flag (forward)
 movecx,6
 repmovsb; copy six times
section.bss
 mystr2:resb6
section.data
 mystrdb"Hello",0x0

Move word

The movsw instruction copies one word (two bytes) from the location specified in esi to the location specified in edi. It basically does the same thing as movsb, except with words instead of bytes.

Operands

None.

Modified flags

• No FLAGS are modified by this instruction

Example

section.code
 ; copy mystr into mystr2
 movesi,mystr
 movedi,mystr2
 cld
 movecx,4
 repmovsw
 ; mystr2 is now AaBbCca\0
section.bss
 mystr2:resb8
section.data
 mystrdb"AaBbCca",0x0

Load Effective Address


lea stands for load effective address. The lea instruction calculates the address of the src operand and loads it into the dest operand.

Operands

src

• Immediate
• Register
• Memory

dest

• Register

Modified flags

• No FLAGS are modified by this instruction

Note

Load Effective Address calculates its src operand in the same way as the mov instruction does, but rather than loading the contents of that address into the dest operand, it loads the address itself.

lea can be used not only for calculating addresses, but also general-purpose unsigned integer arithmetic (with the caveat and possible advantage that FLAGS are unmodified). This can be quite powerful, since the src operand can take up to 4 parameters: base register, index register, scalar multiplier and displacement, e.g. [eax + edx*4 -4] (Intel syntax) or -4(%eax, %edx, 4) (GAS syntax). The scalar multiplier is limited to constant values 1, 2, 4, or 8 for byte, word, double word or quad word offsets respectively. This by itself allows for multiplication of a general register by constant values 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 9, as shown below (using NASM syntax):

leaebx,[ebx*2]; Multiply ebx by 2
leaebx,[ebx*8+ebx]; Multiply ebx by 9, which totals ebx*18

Conditional Move

cmov stands for conditional move. It behaves like mov but the execution depends on various flags. There are following instruction available:

Operands

Dest has to be a register. Src can be either a register or memory operand.

Application

The cmov instruction can be used to eliminate branches, thus usage of cmov instruction avoids branch mispredictions. However, the cmov instructions needs to be used wisely: the dependency chain will become longer.

Data transfer instructions of 8086 microprocessor

General

General purpose byte or word transfer instructions:

mov

copy byte or word from specified source to specified destination

push

copy specified word to top of stack.

pop

copy word from top of stack to specified location

pusha

copy all registers to stack

popa

copy words from stack to all registers

xchg

Exchange bytes or exchange words

xlat

translate a byte in al using a table in memory

Input/Output

These are I/O port transfer instructions:

in

copy a byte or word from specific port to accumulator

out

copy a byte or word from accumulator to specific port

Address Transfer Instruction

Special address transfer Instructions:

lea

load effective address of operand into specified register

lds

load DS register and other specified register from memory

les

load ES register and other specified register from memory

Flags

Flag transfer instructions:

lahf

load ah with the low byte of flag register

sahf

stores ah register to low byte of flag register

pushf

copy flag register to top of stack

popf

copy top of stack word to flag register