Department of Electrical Engineering

Faculty Member: Ms. Shazia Malik Dated: 2/6/2025

Course/Section: C Semester: 4th

Computer Organization and

Assembly Language (CS235)
Lab #2 Data Types in Assembly Language

Grading
Report Marks Viva Marks Total
Name Registration No.
(Max. 8) (Max. 7) (Max. 15)
Abrar butt 460297
 Data Types in Assembly Language
Objective: The aim of this lab is to understand specialized purpose of general purpose registers
and to practice declaring and manipulating variables in assembly language programs and
verifying the outputs.

Task:
Write small detail of each of CPU registers. Write in detail the purpose of general purpose
registers and segment registers.
Instructions:
An instruction is a statement that becomes executable when a program is assembled. Instructions
are translated by the assembler into machine language bytes, which are loaded and executed by
the CPU at runtime.
An instruction contains four basic parts:
• Label (optional)
• Instruction mnemonic (required)
• Operand(s) (usually required)
• Comment (optional)
[label:] mnemonic [operands] [;comment]

Intruction Mnemonic:
An instruction mnemonic is a short word that identifies an instruction. In English, a mnemonic is
a device that assists memory. Similarly, assembly language instruction mnemonics such as mov,
add, and sub provide hints about the type of operation they perform.
• mov Move (assign) one value to another
• add Add two values
• sub Subtract one value from another
• mul Multiply two values
• jmp Jump to a new location
• call Call a procedure

Operands:
Assembly language instructions can have between zero and three operands, each of which can be
a register, memory operand, constant expression, or input-output port.
Examples:
• stc, inc eax, mov count,ebx, imul eax,ebx,5
A memory operand is specified by the name of a variable or by one or more registers containing
the address of a variable.

Directives:
A directive is a command embedded in the source code that is recognized and acted upon by the
assembler. Directives do not execute at runtime.
Directives can define
• variables and procedures
• program sections, or segments.
In MASM, directives are case insensitive. .data, .DATA, and .Data as equivalent.

Identifier:
An identifier is a programmer-chosen name. It might identify a
• variable
• constant
• procedure
• code label.

Label:
A label is an identifier that acts as a place marker for instructions and data.
1. Data Label
A data label identifies the location of a variable, providing a convenient way to reference the
variable in code.
• count DWORD 100
• array DWORD 1024, 2048
2. Code Label:
A label in the code area of a program (where instructions are located) must end with a colon (:)
character. Code labels are used as targets of jumping and looping instructions.
target:
mov ax,bx
...
jmp target
A code label can share the same line with an instruction, or it can be on a line by itself:
L1: mov ax,bx
L2:

Comments:
Single-line comments, beginning with a semicolon character (;). All characters following the
semicolon on the same line are ignored by the assembler.
Block comments, beginning with the COMMENT directive and a user-specified symbol. All
subsequent lines of text are ignored by the assembler until the same user-specified symbol
appears.
Data Types:
MASM defines intrinsic data types, each of which describes a set of values that can be assigned
to variables and expressions of the given type. The essential characteristic of each type is its size
in bits: 8, 16, 32, 48, 64, and 80.
A variable declared as DWORD, for example, logically holds an unsigned 32-bit integer.
The assembler is not case sensitive, so a directive such as DWORD can be written as dword,
Dword, dWord, and so on.
Defining data:
A data definition statement sets aside storage in memory for a variable, with an optional name.
Data definition statements create variables based on intrinsic data types.
A data definition has the following syntax:
[name] directive initializer [,initializer]

Initializers:
All the data types you have seen are integer and real. For integer data types, initializer is an
integer constant or expression matching the size of the variable’s type, such as BYTE or WORD.
If you prefer to leave the variable uninitialized (assigned a random value), the ? symbol can be
used as the initializer.
All initializers, regardless of their format, are converted to binary data by the assembler.
Initializers such as 00110010b, 32h, and 50d all end up being having the same binary value.

1. Integer Constant:
An integer constant (or integer literal) is made up of an optional leading sign, one or
more digits, and an optional suffix character (called a radix) indicating the number’s
base:
[{+ | −}] digits [radix]
Type Representation
Decimal d, t
Binary b, y
Octal q, o
Hexadecimal h

2. Real Constant:
Real number constants are represented as decimal reals or encoded (hexadecimal) reals. A
decimal real contains an optional sign followed by an integer, a decimal point, an optional
integer that expresses a fraction, and an optional exponent:
[sign]integer.[integer][exponent]

Following are the syntax for the sign and exponent:

sign {+,-} exponent E[{+,-}]
Examples:
2. , +3.0, -44.2E+05, 26.E5

3. Character Constant:
A character constant is a single character enclosed in single or double quotes. MASM stores the
value in memory as the character’s binary ASCII code.
Examples:
‘A’ , "d"

4. String Constant:
A string constant is a sequence of characters (including spaces) enclosed in single or double
quotes:
Examples:
'ABC’, 'X’, "Good night, Gracie", '4096'
Exercise 1: Assemble and run the following program.

Program
TITLE Add and Subtract, (AddSub2.asm)
; This program adds and subtracts 32-bit unsigned
; integers and stores the sum in a variable.
INCLUDE Irvine32.inc
.data
val1 DWORD 10000h ;val1 declared as a variable of type DWORD and
initialized
val2 DWORD 40000h
val3 DWORD 20000h
finalVal DWORD ?
.code
main PROC
mov eax,val1 ; start with 10000h
add eax,val2 ; add 40000h
sub eax,val3 ; subtract 20000h
mov finalVal,eax ; store the result (30000h)
call DumpRegs ; display the registers
exit
main ENDP
END main

Exercise 2: Note down the contents of registers EAX, EBX and ECX as displayed by the
program. Do the registers contents match the expected results?

Exercise 3: Write code to achieve the following:

1. Define two 8 bit variables var1, and var2, and initialize these to 20, and 30.
2. Swap the contents of var1 and var2 variables using registers.
3. Display the contents of the registers. (Use “call dumpregs” instruction twice, First
display variable before swapping, then display variable after swapping)

Exercise 4: Write codes to evaluate the arithmetic expression “5+(6-2)”, by:

a. Using one register only
b. Using two registers only
Write down the source codes below.

Exercise 5: Write a constant expression that divides -10 by 3

1. display the integer remainder and quotient.
2. display the remainder and quotient in hexadecimal.