Academic Integrity: tutoring, explanations, and feedback — we don’t complete graded work or submit on a student’s behalf.

1. In the following code, the value in AL is intended to be a signed byte Explai

ID: 3754105 • Letter: 1

Question

1. In the following code, the value in AL is intended to be a signed byte Explain how the Overflow flag helps, or does not help you, to determine whether the final value in AL falls within a valid signed range. mov al,-1 add al, 130 2. Trace the following program: 1: main PROC 2: mov eax,5 3: add eax,6 4: sub eax, 6 5: mov ebx, eax what is the value in eax- and in ebx 3. At which level/s can an assembly language program manipulate input/output? 4. How do you reserve space for the stack in a program? 5. How is a source file different from a listing file?

Explanation / Answer

Answer:

1)

Overflow flag(OF) works on signed numbers.

When result of addition or subtraction is in range -128 to 127 then OF = 0 else OF = 1.

mov al , -1

add al , 130

These instructions results in al = 129 which is big enough to fit in 8-bit for signed numbers ,hence overflow flag is set to 1.

In other words, 129 is greater than 127 hence is out of range to fit in 8-bits for signed numbers.

If overflow flag is set to 1 then fina value of AL doesnot falls within a valid signed range. If OF =0 then it falls within the range.

3)

The following level/s can an assembly language program manipulate input/output

4)

Reserve space for the stack in a program By subtracting a value from the stack pointer register.

(or)

You can reserve space for a stack in a program using the .STACK directive whichtells the assembler how many bytes of memory to reserve for the program’s runtimestack.

5)

A listing file is used to display the error or errors that the assembler encounters while asource file contains the code representing the various machine instructions (Corporation,1996)

A source file is given as input to the assembler. A listing file has additional text that will not
assemble. It is a file that is created by the assembler.