7.1: Notational Conventions

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This section summarizes the notation used within this text which is fairly common in the technical literature. In general, an instruction will consist of the instruction or operation itself (i.e., add, sub, mul, etc.) and the operands. The operands refer to where the data (to be operated on) is coming from and/or where the result is to be placed.

Operand Notation

The following table summarizes the notational conventions used in the remainder of the document.

Operand Notation	Description
<reg>	Register operand. The operand must be a register.
<reg8>, <reg 16>, <reg32>, <reg64>	Register operand with specific size requirement. For example, reg8 means a byte sized register (e.g., al, bl, etc.) only and reg32 means a double-word sized register (e.g., eax, ebx, etc.) only.
<dest>	Destination operand. The operand may be a register or memory. Since it is a destination operand, the contents will be overwritten with the new result (based on the specific instruction).
<RXdest>	Floating-point destination register operand. The operand must be a floating-point register. Since it is a destination operand, the contents will be overwritten with the new result (based on the specific instruction).
<src>	Source operand. Operand value is unchanged after the instruction.
<imm>	Immediate value. May be specified in decimal, hex, octal, or binary.
<mem>	Memory location. May be a variable name or an indirect reference (i.e., a memory address).
<op> or <operand>	Operand, register or memory.
<op8>, <op16>, <op32>, <op64>	Operand, register or memory, with specific size requirement. For example, op8 means a byte sized operand only and reg32 means a double-word sized operand only.
<label>	Program label.

By default, the immediate values are decimal or base-10. Hexadecimal or base-16 immediate values may be used but must be preceded with a 0x to indicate the value is hex. For example, 1510 could be entered in hex as 0x0F.

Refer to Chapter 8, Addressing Modes for more information regarding memory locations and indirection.