Assembler directives

8086 Microprocessor

Assemble Directives
Instructions to the Assembler regarding the program being executed.

Control the generation of machine codes and organization of the program; but no
machine codes are generated for assembler directives.

Also called ‘pseudo instructions’

Used to :
› specify the start and end of a program
› attach value to variables
› allocate storage locations to input/ output data
› define start and end of segments, procedures, macros etc..

2
 8086 Microprocessor

DB
Assemble Directives
Define Byte

DW Define a byte type (8-bit) variable

SEGMENT Reserves specific amount of memory locations to each

ENDS variable

ASSUME Range : 00H – FFH for unsigned value; 00H – 7FH for
positive value and 80H – FFH for negative value
ORG
END General form : variable DB value/ values
EVEN
EQU

PROC
FAR Example:
NEAR LIST DB 7FH, 42H, 35H
ENDP
Three consecutive memory locations are reserved for the variable LIST
SHORT and each data specified in the instruction are stored as initial value in
the reserved memory location
MACRO
ENDM 3
 8086 Microprocessor

Assemble Directives
DB Define Word

DW Define a word type (16-bit) variable

SEGMENT Reserves two consecutive memory locations to each variable

ENDS
Range : 0000H – FFFFH for unsigned value; 0000H –
ASSUME 7FFFH for positive value and 8000H – FFFFH for negative
value
ORG
END General form : variable DW value/ values
EVEN
EQU

PROC
FAR Example:
NEAR ALIST DW 6512H, 0F251H, 0CDE2H
ENDP
Six consecutive memory locations are reserved for the variable ALIST and
SHORT each 16-bit data specified in the instruction is stored in two consecutive
memory location.
MACRO
ENDM 4
 8086 Microprocessor

Assemble Directives
DB SEGMENT : Used to indicate the beginning of a code/ data/
stack segment
DW
ENDS : Used to indicate the end of a code/ data/ stack
SEGMENT segment
ENDS
General form:
ASSUME

ORG
END Segnam SEGMENT
EVEN
…
EQU … Program code
… or
PROC … Data Defining Statements
…
FAR …
NEAR
ENDP Segnam ENDS

SHORT

MACRO User defined name of the

segment
ENDM 5
 8086 Microprocessor

Assemble Directives
DB Informs the assembler the name of the program/ data
segment that should be used for a specific segment.
DW
General form:
SEGMENT
ENDS
ASSUME segreg : segnam, .. , segreg : segnam
ASSUME

ORG
User defined name of the
END Segment Register
segment
EVEN
EQU

PROC Example:
FAR
NEAR ASSUME CS: ACODE, DS:ADATA Tells the compiler that the instructions of the
ENDP program are stored in the segment ACODE and
data are stored in the segment ADATA

SHORT

MACRO
ENDM 6
 8086 Microprocessor

Assemble Directives
ORG (Origin) is used to assign the starting address (Effective address)
DB
for a program/ data segment

DW END is used to terminate a program; statements after END will be

ignored
SEGMENT
ENDS EVEN : Informs the assembler to store program/ data segment
starting from an even address
ASSUME
EQU (Equate) is used to attach a value to a variable

ORG
Examples:
END
EVEN ORG 1000H Informs the assembler that the statements following ORG
EQU 1000H should be stored in memory starting with effective
address 1000H

PROC
FAR
LOOP EQU 10FEH Value of variable LOOP is 10FEH
NEAR
ENDP
_SDATA SEGMENT In this data segment, effective address of memory location
SHORT ORG 1200H assigned to A will be 1200H and that of B will be 1202H and
A DB 4CH 1203H.
EVEN
MACRO B DW 1052H
ENDM _SDATA ENDS 7
 8086 Microprocessor

Assemble Directives
PROC Indicates the beginning of a procedure
DB
ENDP End of procedure
DW
FAR Intersegment call
SEGMENT
ENDS NEAR Intrasegment call

General form
ASSUME

ORG
procname PROC[NEAR/ FAR]
END
EVEN …
… Program statements of the procedure
EQU
…
Last statement of the procedure
PROC RET
ENDP
FAR procname ENDP
NEAR

SHORT User defined name of the

procedure
MACRO
ENDM 8
 8086 Microprocessor

DB
Assemble Directives
Examples:
DW

SEGMENT ADD64 PROC NEAR The subroutine/ procedure named ADD64 is declared as
ENDS NEAR and so the assembler will code the CALL and RET
… instructions involved in this procedure as near call and
… return
ASSUME …

RET
ORG
ADD64 ENDP
END
EVEN
EQU CONVERT PROC FAR The subroutine/ procedure named CONVERT is declared as
FAR and so the assembler will code the CALL and RET
… instructions involved in this procedure as far call and return
PROC …
ENDP …
FAR
RET
NEAR CONVERT ENDP

SHORT

MACRO
ENDM 9
 8086 Microprocessor

Assemble Directives
DB Reserves one memory location for 8-bit signed displacement
in jump instructions
DW
Example:
SEGMENT
ENDS

ASSUME JMP SHORT AHEAD The directive will reserve one memory location
for 8-bit displacement named AHEAD
ORG
END
EVEN
EQU

PROC
ENDP
FAR
NEAR

SHORT

MACRO
ENDM 10
 8086 Microprocessor

Assemble Directives
DB MACRO Indicate the beginning of a macro

DW ENDM End of a macro

SEGMENT General form:

ENDS

ASSUME macroname MACRO[Arg1, Arg2 ...]

Program statements
… in the macro
ORG …
END …
EVEN
EQU macroname ENDM

PROC
ENDP
FAR
User defined name of the macro
NEAR

SHORT

MACRO
ENDM 11