Assembler Directives

Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,

06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 1
 The assembler directives control organization of
the program and provide necessary information
to the assembler to understand assembly
language programs to generate machine codes.
 An assembler supports directives to define data,
to organize segments to control procedures, to
define macros etc.

 An assembly language program consists of two

types of statements:
 Instructions and Directives.
 The instructions are translated to machine codes by the
assembler whereas the directives are not translated to
machine codes.
Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,
06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 2
SEGMENT AND ENDS DIRECTIVES
 To put a group of data items or group of
instructions in a particular segment
 A group of data segments or a group of instruction
statements contained between SEGMENT and
ENDS directives is called a logical segment
 SEGMENT
 Beginning of a memory segment.
 It is used to show the beginning of a memory segment
with a specific name.
 ENDS
 End of segment

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 3

 This directive defines the termination of a
particular memory segment as it is specified
by its name.

 The statements within the segment are

nothing but the program code.

Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,

06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 4
ASSUME
 The ASSUME directives is used to inform the assembler
the names of the logical segments, which are to be
assigned to the different segments used in an assembly
language program.
 In an assembly language program, each segment is given
a name by the programmer.
 For example, the code segment may be given the name
CODE or CODE_SEG or MY_CODE, etc.
 The data segment may be given the name DATA,
MY_DATA, DATA_SEG, etc.

Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,

06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 5
 ASSUME CS : CODE

 The above directive tells the assembler that the name

of the code segment is CODE.
 This name is a user defined segment name. The
segment named CODE contains the machine codes of
the instructions.
 The code segment register (CS register) is to be
loaded with the starting address of the code segment,
given by the operating system for the label CODE in
the assembly language program.

Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,

06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 6
 ASSUME DS: DATA

 The above directive informs the assembler that the

name of the data segment is DATA.
 This is a user defined segment name. It contains data
of the program which is being executed.
 The DS register (data segment register) is to be
loaded with the starting address of the data segment,
given by the operating system for the label DATA in
the program.

Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,

06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 7
 ASSUME ES: EXTRA

 The above directive tells the assembler that the name

of the extra segment is EXTRA which is a user defined
segment name.
 In Intel 8086 microprocessor, string instructions may
use DI register to point the destination memory
address for the data.
 The EXTRA segment is used to hold the addresses
pointed by DI.

Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,

06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 8
 ASSUME SS: STACK
 The above directive tells the assembler that the name

of the stack segment used by the programmer is

STACK.
 This is a user defined segment name.

 It stores addresses and data of the subroutines, saves

the contents a specified register or memory locations

after PUSH instruction, etc.
 The stack segment register SS holds the starting

address of the stack segment allotted by the operating

system.
Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,
06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 9
Naming Data and Addresses – EQU, DB,
DW and DD Directives
EQU(Equate):
 The directive EQU is used to give a name to certain
value or symbol.
 If any value or symbol is used many times in an
assembly language program, a name is given to the
value or symbol to make programming easier and
simpler.
 Each time the assembler finds the given name in the
program, it replaces the name with the value or
symbol which has already been equated with that
name.
06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 10
 The general format for the EQU directive is:
 Value Name EQU Value

 Example:
 ROOM_TEMP EQU 02H

 The above directive tells assembler to replace

ROOM_TEMP by 02H.
 If EQU directive is written in the beginning of the
program and later on MOV AL, ROOM_TEMP is
written in the program, the assembler will treat
this instruction as if it were MOV AL, 02H while
giving its machine codes.

Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,

06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 11
 Advantage of using EQU directive at start of
programs is that if we want to modify the value
of ROOM_TEMP it is enough if we change only
at one place of declaration; it will reflect at all
occurrences of NUM in the pgm

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 12

DB, DW and DD Directives
 DB: Define byte
 DW: Define word
 DD: Define doubleword
 DT: Define TenBytes
 DQ: Define Quadword

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 13

DB (Define Byte) :
 The directive DB a byte type variable.
 DB takes 1 byte of memory location.
 In a given directive statement, there may be
single initial value or multiple initial values of the
defined variable.
 If there is one initial value, one byte of memory
space is reserved for each value.

 The general format is:

 Name of Variable DB Initial value or Values.

Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,
06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 14
 Examples:
 A DB 12H
 Array DB 27H, 48H, 32H, 69H

 C DB ?

 ? Signifies we don’t care about the initial value

 This directive informs assembler to reserve one byte of

memory space for the variable named A and initialize
with value 12H.
 This directive informs assembler to reserve Four bytes of
consecutive memory space for the variable named
Array.
 The memory locations are to be initialized with the
values 27H, 48H, 32H and 69H.

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 15

 MESSAGE DB ‘THANK YOU’

 This directive informs the assembler to reserve

the number of bytes of memory space equal to
the number of characters in the string named
MESSAGE, and initialize the memory locations
with ASCII codes of the these characters.

Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,

06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 16
DW (Define Word)
 The directive DW defines a word -type variable. The
defined variable may have one or more initial values in
the directive statement.
 If there is one value, two-bytes of memory space are
reserved.
 If there are multiple values, two bytes of memory space
are reserved for each value.

 The general formula is:

 Name of variable DW Initial Value or Values.

Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,

06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 17
 Examples:

SUM DW 3596.

This directive informs the assembler to

reserve two bytes (one word) of consecutive
memory locations for the variable named SUM
and initialize it with the value 3596.

Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,

06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 18
DD (Define Double Word)
 This directive DD defines a double word-type variable.
The defined variable may have one or more values in the
statement. If there is only one value, four bytes of
consecutive memory locations are reserved. If there are
multiple values, four bytes of memory locations are
reserved for each value.
 The general format is:
 Name of Variable DD Initial value or values
Example:
 NUMBER DD 23958634
 The above directive informs assembler to reserve four bytes of
memory locations for the variable named NUMBER and initialize
with the number 23958634.
Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,
06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 19
DUP-duplicate

 The DUP directive can be used to initialize

several locations and to assign values to these
locations

 Example:
 TABLE DB 10 DUP(0)
 Reserve an array of 10 bytes of memory and intialize all 10
Bytes with 0.
 Array is named TABLE

Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,

06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 20
Multiply.asm

Data segment
a dw 204Ah
b dw 3B2Ah
c dw 2 dup (0)
Data ends
Code segment
assume cs:code, ds:data
Start: mov ax, data
mov ds, ax
mov ax, a
mul b
mov c, ax
mov c+2, dx
mov ah, 4ch
int 21h
Code ends
End start

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 21

Types of Numbers in Data
Statements
BINARY:

Example:

MAX DB 01111001B

 If you want to put in a negative binary no, write

the no in its 2’s complement sign-and-magnitude
form

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 22

DECIMAL:

Example:

MAX DB 49

 If you specify a –ve no in a data declaration

statement, the assembler will convert it to 2’s
complement form

Example:

MIN DB -20

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 23

HEXADECIMAL:

 A hexadecimal number is indicated by an H after the

hexadecimal digits

Example:
NUM1 DB 35H

Note:
 A zero must be placed in front of a hex number that
starts with a letter

Example:
NUM2 DB 0F4H

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 24

BCD: (Binary Coded Decimal)

 BCD uses a 4-bit binary code to individually

represent each decimal digit in a number

 Uses the first 10 numbers of a standard binary

code for the BCD numbers 0 through 9

 The hex codes A through F are invalid BCD

codes

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 25

 To convert a decimal number to its BCD
equivalent, just represent each decimal digit by
its 4-bit binary equivalent

Decimal 5 2 9
BCD 0101 0010 1001

 To convert a BCD number to its decimal

equivalent, reverse the process

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 26

BCD Addition:

1)
BCD
35 0011 0101
+23 + 0010 0011
58 0101 1000

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 27

2)
BCD
7 0111
+5 + 0101
12 1100 Incorrect BCD
+ 0110 Add 6
0001 0010 correct BCD 12

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 28

3)
BCD
9 1001
+8 + 1000
17 0001 0001 Incorrect BCD
0000 0110 Add 6
0001 0111 correct BCD 17

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 29

Note:

 The reason for the correction factor 6 is that in

BCD we want a carry into the next digit after
1001 or 9, but in binary a carryout of the lower 4
bits doesn’t occur until after 1111 or 15.

 The difference between the two carry points is to

produce the desired carry if the result of an
addition in any BCD is more than 1001

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 30

 If you want the assembler to initialize a variable
with the value 37 BCD, we have to put an H after
the number

Example:
SECONDS DB 59H

 This will initialize SECONDS with 0101 1001,

which is BCD representation of 59

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 31

ASCII:

 We can declare a data structure (array)

containing a sequence of ASCII codes by
enclosing the letters or numbers after a DB in
single quotation marks

Example:
BOY1 DB ‘RAM’

 Tells the assembler to declare a data item

named BOY1 that has 3 memory locations

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 32

 It also tells the assembler to put the ASCII code
for R in the first memory location, ASCII code for
A in second memory location and ASCII code for
M in 3rd memory location

 The assembler will automatically determine the

ASCII codes for the letters or numbers within the
quotes

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 33

Accessing Named Data with program
instructions
 The assembler will automatically calculate the
displacement of the named data item from the
start of the segment and insert this value as part
of the binary code for the instruction

Example:
a dw 1234h
b db 23h

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 34

Naming Addresses - Labels

 One type of name used to represent addresses

is called a label

 Labels are written in the label field of an

instruction statement or a directive statement

 One major use of labels is to represent the

destination for jump and call instructions

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 35

Example:

NEXT : IN AL, 05H

.
.
.
JMP NEXT

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 36

The END(End of Program) Directive
 The directive END informs assembler the end of
a program module.
 This is used after the last statement of the
program module.
 This assembler ignores statement(s) after an
END directive.
 Its general format is:

 END label

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 37

ENDP – End Procedure

 The directive ENDP informs assembler the end of a procedure. In

assembly language programming, subroutines are called
procedures.
 A procedure may be an independent program module to give certain
result or the required value to the calling program. A procedure is
given a name i.e. a label.
 The label is used as prefix with directive ENDP.
 This directive is used together with PROC directive to enclose the
procedure.
 To specify the type of the procedure the term FAR or NEAR is used
after the PROC directive.

Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,

06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 38
 The type FAR indicates that the procedure to be
called is in some other segment of memory.
 Type NEAR indicates that the procedure is in the
same segment of memory.
 If type is not specified, the assembler assumes it
NEAR.
 The general format for ENDP directive is:
 Procedure Name ENDP

Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,

06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 39
 Example:

 Delay PROC FAR ; Start of Procedure

 : ; Procedure instructions

 Delay ENDP ; End of Procedure

Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,

06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 40
 ENDM (End Macro)

 The directive ENDM is used to inform assembler that this

is the end of a macro. The directive ENDM is used with
the directive MACRO to enclose macro instructions.

 Example:
 COMPLIMENT MACRO ; Start of macro
 : ; Macro instructions
 ENDM ; End of Macro

 COMPLIMENT is the name of a macro. The name is

given before the directive MCRO which tells the
assembler the beginning of a macro.
Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,
06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 41
ENDS ( End of Segment)
 The ENDS directive informs assembler that this is the

end of the segment. The name of the segment is given

using ASSUME directive.
 The name of the segment is used as the prefix of the

ENDS directive.
 Its general format is:

 Segment Name ENDS

 Example:
 CODE_SEG SEGMENT ; Start of code segment
 – ; instructions
 CODE_SEG ENDS ; End of segment

Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,

06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 42
Initializing Segment Registers

 When the instructions are executed, the

displacements in the instructions will be added
to the segment base addresses represented by
the 16-bit numbers in the segment registers to
produce the actual physical addresses

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 43

 The segment registers other than the code
segment register must be initialized by program
instructions before they can be used to access
data

 If data segment represented by DATA then the

instructions for this are:
MOV AX, DATA
MOV DS, AX

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 44

 If we use the stack segment and the extra
segment in a program, the stack segment
register and the extra segment register must be
initialized by program instructions in the same
way

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 45

Writing and Using Assembler Macros

 Macro is a set of instruction and the programmer can

use it anywhere in the program by using its name.
 It is mainly used to achieve modular programming.
 So same set of instructions can be used multiple times
when ever required by the help of macro.
 Wherever macro’s identifier is used, it is replaced by the
actual defined instructions during compilation thereby no
calling and return occurs.

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 46

Defining and Calling a Macro Without
Parameters
Macro Definition:
MACRO-NAME MACRO
; MACRO DEFINITION
;
ENDM
Invoking a Macro:
MACRO-NAME

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 47

Defining Macro :
MACRO-name MACRO [ARGUMENT 1,……….ARGUMENT N]
-----
MACRO CODING GOES HERE
ENDM

Ex:
DISPLAY MACRO 12,13
---------------------
MACRO STATEMENTS
-----------------------
ENDM

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 48

Example
Macro Definition:
CLRSCR MACRO
MOV AH, 00H
MOV AL, 02H
INT 10H
ENDM

Macro Invocation:
CLRSCR

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 49

Passing Parameters to Macros
Example:
Macro definition:
SETCURSOR MACRO row, col
MOV DL, col ;Column
MOV DH, row ;Row
MOV BH, 00H
MOV AH, 02H
INT 10H
ENDM
06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 50
 If the macro invocation statement is
SETCURSOR 12, 40 then the macro will be
replaced by:

MOV DL, 40
MOV DH, 12
MOV BH, 00H
MOV AH, 02H
INT 10H

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 51

 INCLUDE – Include source code from file

 Is used to tell the assembler to insert a block of

source code from the named file into the current
source module

 INCLUDE f1.mac

Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,

06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 52
 OFFSET

 Tells the assembler to determine the offset or

displacement of a named data item or procedure
from the start of the segment which contains it

Example:

MOV SI, OFFSET PRICES

Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,

06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 53
 PROC – Procedure

 Is used to identify the start of a procedure

 The PROC directive follows a name you give

the procedure

Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,

06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 54
FAR
This directive is a type specifier that is used by

the assembler to declare intersegment call (i.e.,

call from different segment).

NEAR
This is used for intrasegment call i.e., a call

within the same segment.

 SEGMENT

 Is used to indicate the start of a logical

segment

 Preceding the SEGMENT directive is the

name you want to give the segment

Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,

06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 56
 The statement, CODE SEGMENT for example,
indicates to the assembler the start of a logical
segment called CODE

 The SEGMENT and ENDS directives are used

to “bracket” a logical segment containing code or
data

Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,

06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 57
Assembly Language Program
Development Tools
 We will probably want to use some type of
program development tools to make our work
easier

 Most of these tools are programs which we run

to perform some function on the program we
are writing

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 58

Editor

 Is a program which allows us to create a file

containing the assembly language statements
for our program

 As we type in our program, the editor stores the

ASCII codes for the letters and numbers in
successive RAM locations

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 59

 When we have typed in all our program, we then
save the file on hard disk

 If we are going to use MASM assembler, we

should give the source file name the
extension .asm

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 60

Assembler

 Translates the assembly language mnemonics

for instructions to the corresponding binary
codes

 On the first pass through the source program,

the assembler determines the displacement of
named data items, the offset of labels etc and
puts this information in a symbol table

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 61

 On the second pass through the source
program, the assembler produces the binary
code for each instruction and inserts the offsets,
etc that is calculated during first pass

 The assembler generates two files on hard disk

 The .obj file and .lst file

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 62

 The .obj file i.e. object file contains the binary
codes for the instructions and information about
the addresses of the instructions

 The .lst i.e. assembler list file consists of

assembly language statements, the binary
codes for each instruction and the offset for
each instruction

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 63

 The assembler listing will also indicate any
typing or syntax errors we made in our source
program

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 64

Linker
 A linker is a program used to join several object
files into one large object file

 When writing large programs, it is usually much

efficient to divide the large program into smaller
modules

 Each module can be individually written, tested

and debugged

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 65

 When all the modules work, their object modules
can be linked together to form a large,
functioning program

 The linker produces a link file which contains the

binary codes for all the combined modules

 The linker also produces a link map file which

contains the address information about the
linked files

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 66

 The MASM assemblers produce link files with
the .EXE extension

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 67

Locator

 A locator is a program used to assign the

specific addresses of where the segments of
object code are to be loaded into memory

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 68

Debugger

 A debugger is a program which allows you to

load our object code program into system
memory, execute the program and troubleshoot
or debug it

 Allows us to look at the contents of registers and

memory locations after our program runs

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 69

 A debugger also allows us to set a breakpoint at
any point in our program

 If we insert a breakpoint, the debugger will run

the program up to the instruction where we put
the breakpoint and then stop execution

 The debugger commands help us to quickly find

the source of a problem in our program

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 70

Emulator

 Is a mixture of hardware and software

 Is usually used to test and debug the hardware

and software of an external system, such as the
prototype of a microprocessor-based instrument

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 71

 Like a debugger, an emulator allows us to load
and run programs, examine and change the
contents of registers, examine and change the
contents of memory locations and insert
breakpoints in the program

 The emulator also takes a snapshot of the

contents of the registers, activity on the address
and data bus, and the state of the flags as each
instruction executes

06/29/24 ROSHAN FERNANDES, DEPT OF CSE 72

 Thank You…

Roshan Fernandes, Dept of CSE,

06/29/24 NMAMIT, Nitte 73