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YASM_ARCH(7)		  Yasm Supported Architectures		    YASM_ARCH(7)

NAME
     yasm_arch - Yasm Supported Target Architectures

SYNOPSIS
     yasm -a arch [-m machine] ...

DESCRIPTION
     The  standard  Yasm distribution includes a number of modules for different
     target architectures. Each target architecture can support one or more  ma-
     chine architectures.

     The  architecture	and  machine are selected on the yasm(1) command line by
     use of the -a arch and -m machine command line options, respectively.

     The machine architecture may also automatically be selected by certain  ob-
     ject  formats. For example, the "elf32" object format selects the "x86" ma-
     chine architecture by default, while the "elf64" object format selects  the
     "amd64" machine architecture by default.

X86 ARCHITECTURE
     The  "x86"  architecture supports the IA-32 instruction set and derivatives
     and the AMD64 instruction set. It consists of two machines: "x86" (for  the
     IA-32 and derivatives) and "amd64" (for the AMD64 and derivatives). The de-
     fault machine for the "x86" architecture is the "x86" machine.

   BITS Setting
     The  x86  architecture BITS setting specifies to Yasm the processor mode in
     which the generated code is intended to execute. x86 processors can run  in
     three  different  major  execution modes: 16-bit, 32-bit, and on AMD64-sup-
     porting processors, 64-bit. As the x86 instruction  set  contains	portions
     whose  function  is  execution-mode dependent (such as operand-size and ad-
     dress-size override prefixes), Yasm cannot assemble x86  instructions  cor-
     rectly  unless  it is told by the user in what processor mode the code will
     execute.

     The BITS setting can be changed in  a  variety  of  ways.	When  using  the
     NASM-compatible  parser,  the  BITS setting can be changed directly via the
     use of the BITS xx assembler directive. The default BITS setting is  deter-
     mined by the object format in use.

   BITS 64 Extensions
     The AMD64 architecture is a new 64-bit architecture developed by AMD, based
     on the 32-bit x86 architecture. It extends the original x86 architecture by
     doubling  the  number  of general purpose and SIMD registers, extending the
     arithmetic operations and address space to 64 bits, as well as  other  fea-
     tures.

     Recently,	Intel  has  introduced an essentially identical version of AMD64
     called EM64T.

     When an AMD64-supporting processor is executing in 64-bit mode, a number of
     additional extensions are available, including extra general purpose regis-
     ters, extra SSE2 registers, and RIP-relative addressing.

     Yasm extends the base NASM syntax to support AMD64 as  follows.  To  enable
     assembly  of  instructions for the 64-bit mode of AMD64 processors, use the
     directive BITS 64. As with NASM's BITS directive, this does not change  the
     format  of the output object file to 64 bits; it only changes the assembler
     mode to assume that the instructions being assembled will be run in  64-bit
     mode.  To	specify  an  AMD64 object file, use -m amd64 on the Yasm command
     line, or explicitly target a 64-bit object format such as -f  win64  or  -f
     elf64.   -f elfx32 can be used to select 32-bit ELF object format for AMD64
     processors.

     Register Changes

	 The additional 64-bit general purpose registers are named r8-r15. There
	 are also 8-bit (rXb), 16-bit (rXw), and 32-bit (rXd) subregisters  that
	 map  to the least significant 8, 16, or 32 bits of the 64-bit register.
	 The original 8 general purpose registers have	also  been  extended  to
	 64-bits:  eax,  edx,  ecx,  ebx, esi, edi, esp, and ebp have new 64-bit
	 versions called rax, rdx, rcx, rbx, rsi,  rdi,  rsp,  and  rbp  respec-
	 tively.  The  old 32-bit registers map to the least significant bits of
	 the new 64-bit registers.

	 New 8-bit registers are also available that map to the 8 least signifi-
	 cant bits of rsi, rdi, rsp, and rbp. These are called	sil,  dil,  spl,
	 and  bpl  respectively.  Unfortunately, due to the way instructions are
	 encoded, these new 8-bit registers are encoded  the  same  as	the  old
	 8-bit	registers ah, dh, ch, and bh. The processor tells which is being
	 used by the presence of the new REX prefix that is used to specify  the
	 other	extended  registers.  This means it is illegal to mix the use of
	 ah, dh, ch, and bh with an instruction that requires the REX prefix for
	 other reasons. For instance:

	     add ah, [r10]

	 (NASM syntax) is not a legal instruction because the  use  of	r10  re-
	 quires a REX prefix, making it impossible to use ah.

	 In  64-bit  mode,  an	additional  8 SSE2 registers are also available.
	 These are named xmm8-xmm15.

     64 Bit Instructions

	 By default, most operations in 64-bit mode  remain  32-bit;  operations
	 that are 64-bit usually require a REX prefix (one bit in the REX prefix
	 determines whether an operation is 64-bit or 32-bit). Thus, essentially
	 all  32-bit instructions have a 64-bit version, and the 64-bit versions
	 of instructions can use extended registers "for free" (as the REX  pre-
	 fix is already present). Examples in NASM syntax:

	     mov eax, 1  ; 32-bit instruction

	     mov rcx, 1  ; 64-bit instruction

	 Instructions  that  modify  the stack (push, pop, call, ret, enter, and
	 leave) are implicitly 64-bit. Their 32-bit counterparts are not  avail-
	 able, but their 16-bit counterparts are. Examples in NASM syntax:

	     push eax  ; illegal instruction

	     push rbx  ; 1-byte instruction

	     push r11  ; 2-byte instruction with REX prefix

     Implicit Zero Extension

	 Results  of 32-bit operations are implicitly zero-extended to the upper
	 32 bits of the corresponding 64-bit register. 16 and 8 bit  operations,
	 on the other hand, do not affect upper bits of the register (just as in
	 32-bit  and 16-bit modes). This can be used to generate smaller code in
	 some instances. Examples in NASM syntax:

	     mov ecx, 1  ; 1 byte shorter than mov rcx, 1

	     and edx, 3  ; equivalent to and rdx, 3

     Immediates

	 For most instructions in 64-bit mode, immediate values remain 32  bits;
	 their	value is sign-extended into the upper 32 bits of the target reg-
	 ister prior to being used. The exception is the mov instruction,  which
	 can  take a 64-bit immediate when the destination is a 64-bit register.
	 Examples in NASM syntax:

	     add rax, 1 	  ; optimized down to signed 8-bit

	     add rax, dword 1	  ; force size to 32-bit

	     add rax, 0xffffffff  ; sign-extended 32-bit

	     add rax, -1	  ; same as above

	     add rax, 0xffffffffffffffff ; truncated to 32-bit (warning)

	     mov eax, 1 	  ; 5 byte

	     mov rax, 1 	  ; 5 byte (optimized to signed 32-bit)

	     mov rax, qword 1	  ; 10 byte (forced 64-bit)

	     mov rbx, 0x1234567890abcdef ; 10 byte

	     mov rcx, 0xffffffff  ; 10 byte (does not fit in signed 32-bit)

	     mov ecx, -1	  ; 5 byte, equivalent to above

	     mov rcx, sym	  ; 5 byte, 32-bit size default for symbols

	     mov rcx, qword sym   ; 10 byte, override default size

	 The handling of mov reg64, unsized immediate is different between  YASM
	 and  NASM 2.x; YASM follows the above behavior, while NASM 2.x does the
	 following:

	     add rax, 0xffffffff  ; sign-extended 32-bit immediate

	     add rax, -1	  ; same as above

	     add rax, 0xffffffffffffffff ; truncated 32-bit (warning)

	     add rax, sym	  ; sign-extended 32-bit immediate

	     mov eax, 1 	  ; 5 byte (32-bit immediate)

	     mov rax, 1 	  ; 10 byte (64-bit immediate)

	     mov rbx, 0x1234567890abcdef ; 10 byte instruction

	     mov rcx, 0xffffffff  ; 10 byte instruction

	     mov ecx, -1	  ; 5 byte, equivalent to above

	     mov ecx, sym	  ; 5 byte (32-bit immediate)

	     mov rcx, sym	  ; 10 byte instruction

	     mov rcx, qword sym   ; 10 byte (64-bit immediate)

     Displacements

	 Just like immediates, displacements, for the most part, remain 32  bits
	 and  are  sign  extended  prior to use. Again, the exception is one re-
	 stricted form of the mov instruction: between the al/ax/eax/rax  regis-
	 ter  and  a 64-bit absolute address (no registers allowed in the effec-
	 tive address). In NASM syntax, use of the 64-bit absolute form requires
	 [qword]. Examples in NASM syntax:

	     mov eax, [1]    ; 32 bit, with sign extension

	     mov al, [rax-1] ; 32 bit, with sign extension

	     mov al, [qword 0x1122334455667788] ; 64-bit absolute

	     mov al, [0x1122334455667788] ; truncated to 32-bit (warning)

     RIP Relative Addressing

	 In 64-bit mode, a new form of effective addressing is available to make
	 it easier to write position-independent code. Any memory reference  may
	 be  made  RIP	relative (RIP is the instruction pointer register, which
	 contains the address of the location immediately following the  current
	 instruction).

	 In NASM syntax, there are two ways to specify RIP-relative addressing:

	     mov dword [rip+10], 1

	 stores  the value 1 ten bytes after the end of the instruction.  10 can
	 also be a symbolic constant, and will be treated the same way.  On  the
	 other hand,

	     mov dword [symb wrt rip], 1

	 stores  the value 1 into the address of symbol symb. This is distinctly
	 different than the behavior of:

	     mov dword [symb+rip], 1

	 which takes the address of the end of the instruction, adds the address
	 of symb to it, then stores the value 1 there. If symb	is  a  variable,
	 this will not store the value 1 into the symb variable!

	 Yasm also supports the following syntax for RIP-relative addressing:

	     mov [rel sym], rax  ; RIP-relative

	     mov [abs sym], rax  ; not RIP-relative

	 The behavior of:

	     mov [sym], rax

	 Depends on a mode set by the DEFAULT directive, as follows. The default
	 mode  is always "abs", and in "rel" mode, use of registers, an fs or gs
	 segment override, or an  explicit  "abs"  override  will  result  in  a
	 non-RIP-relative effective address.

	     default rel

	     mov [sym], rbx	 ; RIP-relative

	     mov [abs sym], rbx  ; not RIP-relative (explicit override)

	     mov [rbx+1], rbx	 ; not RIP-relative (register use)

	     mov [fs:sym], rbx	 ; not RIP-relative (fs or gs use)

	     mov [ds:sym], rbx	 ; RIP-relative (segment, but not fs or gs)

	     mov [rel sym], rbx  ; RIP-relative (redundant override)

	     default abs

	     mov [sym], rbx	 ; not RIP-relative

	     mov [abs sym], rbx  ; not RIP-relative

	     mov [rbx+1], rbx	 ; not RIP-relative

	     mov [fs:sym], rbx	 ; not RIP-relative

	     mov [ds:sym], rbx	 ; not RIP-relative

	     mov [rel sym], rbx  ; RIP-relative (explicit override)

     Memory references

	 Usually  the  size of a memory reference can be deduced by which regis-
	 ters you're moving--for example, "mov [rax],ecx" is a 32-bit move,  be-
	 cause	ecx  is  32  bits. YASM currently gives the non-obvious "invalid
	 combination of opcode and operands" error if it can't	figure	out  how
	 much memory you're moving. The fix in this case is to add a memory size
	 specifier: qword, dword, word, or byte.

	 Here's a 64-bit memory move, which sets 8 bytes starting at rax:

	     mov qword [rax], 1

	 Here's a 32-bit memory move, which sets 4 bytes:

	     mov dword [rax], 1

	 Here's a 16-bit memory move, which sets 2 bytes:

	     mov word [rax], 1

	 Here's an 8-bit memory move, which sets 1 byte:

	     mov byte [rax], 1

LC3B ARCHITECTURE
     The  "lc3b" architecture supports the LC-3b ISA as used in the ECE 312 (now
     ECE 411) course at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, as well as
     other university courses. See http://courses.ece.uiuc.edu/ece411/ for  more
     details  and example code. The "lc3b" architecture consists of only one ma-
     chine: "lc3b".

SEE ALSO
     yasm(1)

BUGS
     When using the "x86" architecture, it is overly easy to generate AMD64 code
     (using the BITS 64 directive) and generate a 32-bit object file (by failing
     to specify -m amd64 on the command line or selecting a 64-bit  object  for-
     mat).  Similarly,	specifying -m amd64 does not default the BITS setting to
     64. An easy way to avoid this is by directly  specifying  a  64-bit  object
     format such as -f elf64.

AUTHOR
     Peter Johnson <peter@tortall.net>
	 Author.

COPYRIGHT
     Copyright (C) 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Peter Johnson

Yasm				  October 2006			    YASM_ARCH(7)

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