Reading: x86 Family

Almost all major processors from Intel share a common ISA (Instruction Set Architecture). These processors are highly backward compatible, with most instructions unchanged over generations, but only added or extended.

NOTE: An ISA defines the instructions supported by a processor, register size, addressing modes, data types, instruction format, interrupts, and memory organization. Processors in this family fall into the broad category of CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computers). The philosophy behind them is to have a large number of instructions, with variable length, capable of performing complex operations, over multiple clock cycles.

Registers

The basic working units for x86 processors are registers. These are a suite of locations within the processor through which it interacts with memory, I/O, etc.

x86 processors have 16 such 64-bit registers. Although any of these can be used in operations, for historical reasons, each register has a specific role.

Name	Role
rax	accumulator; system calls, I/O, arithmetic
rbx	base register; used for memory-based addressing
rcx	counter in loop instructions
rdx	data register, used for I/O, arithmetic, interrupt values; can extend rax to 128 bits
rsi	source in string operations
rdi	destination in string operations
rbp	base or frame pointer; points to the current stack frame
rsp	stack pointer; points to the top of the stack
r8-15	general purpose registers

In addition to these, there are some special registers that cannot be directly accessed by the programmer, such as rflags and rip (Instruction Pointer).

rip is a register that holds the address of the current instruction to be executed. It cannot be directly modified, programmatically, but indirectly through jump, call, and ret instructions.

The rflags register contains 64 bits used as status indicators or condition variables. We say that a flag is set if its value is 1. The ones commonly used by programmers are:

Name	Expanded Name	Description
CF	Carry Flag	Set if the result exceeds the maximum (or minimum) unsigned integer value
PF	Parity Flag	Set if the low byte of the result contains an even number of 1 bits
AF	Auxiliary Carry Flag	Used in BCD arithmetic; set if bit 3 generates a carry or borrow
ZF	Zero Flag	Set if the result of the previous instruction is 0
SF	Sign Flag	Has the same value as the sign bit of the result (1 negative, 0 positive)
OF	Overflow Flag	Set if the result exceeds the maximum (or minimum) signed integer value

NOTE: If you follow the evolution of registers from 8086, you’ll see that initially they were named ax, bx, cx etc., and were 16 bits in size. From 80386, Intel extended these registers to 32 bits (i.e., “extended” ax → eax), and again with the release of “Prescott” and “Nocona” processors.

Instruction Classes

All x86 processors instructions can fit into 3 categories :

• data movement instructions
• arithmetical/logical instructions
• program control instructions

We will only display some of the more important instructions of each category since many of them are alike.

Data Movement Instructions

These instructions are used to transfer data between registers, between memory and registers, and to initialize data:

Name	Operands	Description
mov	dst, src	Moves the value from source to the destination(erasing what was in the destination before)
push	src	Moves the value from the source onto the “top” of the stack
pop	dst	Moves the value from the “top” of the stack into the destination
lea	dst, src	Loads the effective address of the source to the destination
xchg	dst, src	Swaps (Exchanges) the values between the source and the destination

Arithmetic and Logic Instructions

These instructions perform arithmetic and logic operations:

Name	Operands	Description
add	dst, src	Adds the source and the destination, storing the result in the destination
sub	dst, src	Subtracts the source from the destination, storing the result in the destination
and	dst, src	Calculates logical AND between the source and the destination, storing the result in the destination
or	dst, src	Calculates logical OR between the source and the destination, storing the result in the destination
xor	dst, src	Calculates logical XOR between the source and the destination, storing the result in the destination
test	dst, src	Calculates logical AND between the source and the destination without storing the result
shl	dst, <const>	Calculates the logical shifted value from the destination with a constant number of positions, storing the result in the destination

Program Control Instructions

These instructions are used to control the flow of programs:

Name	Operands	Description
jmp	<address>	Jumps unconditionally to the specified address(directly, by register, by labels)
cmp	dst, src	Compares the source with the destination(more details below)
jcond	<address>	Jumps conditionally to the specified address depending on the state of the flag(set/not set)/condition variable
call	<address>	Calls the subroutine located at the specified address

NOTE: The ‘cmp dest, src’ instruction effectively calculates dest - src behind the scenes(as in subtracting the source from the destination). We are talking about an unsigned subtraction, without storing the result.

Therefore, when talking about the code:

  cmp rax, 0
  jl negative

The jump to the negative label will be made only if the value in eax is less than 0. The rax - 0 subtraction is evaluated and if the result is negative (and so, rax is negative), the jump will be made.
When have comparisons with 0, the same thing can be done more efficiently using the test instruction:

  test rax, rax
  jl negative

More on this here.