Assembly language is a low-level programming language that provides a symbolic, human-readable way to write instructions that a CPU understands. It’s one step above machine code (binary) and is specific to a CPU architecture like x86, x86-64, ARM, RISC-V, etc.
Features
- Architecture-specific (e.g., x86-64, ARM, MIPS)
- Mnemonic-based: Uses symbols like
mov,add,jmp - Low-level: Direct access to memory, CPU registers, and instructions
- Used for: OS kernels, bootloaders, reverse engineering, malware, performance-critical code.
Instructions
| Mnemonic | Meaning | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
mov | Move data | mov rax, rbx | Copies data between registers/memory |
add | Addition | add eax, 1 | Adds a value |
sub | Subtraction | sub rbx, 10 | Subtracts a value |
push | Stack push | push rax | Pushes a value onto the stack |
pop | Stack pop | pop rbx | Pops value from the stack |
call | Call function | call my_func | Calls a subroutine |
ret | Return | ret | Returns from subroutine |
jmp | Jump | jmp label | Unconditional jump |
cmp | Compare | cmp eax, 0 | Sets flags based on comparison |
je | Jump if equal | je label | Conditional jump if equal |