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In computer programming, assembly language (alternatively assembler language [1] or symbolic machine code), [2] [3] [4] often referred to simply as assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence between the instructions in the language and the architecture's machine code instructions. [5]
The embedding of assembly language code is usually done for one of these reasons: [1] Optimization: Programmers can use assembly language code to implement the most performance-sensitive parts of their program's algorithms, code that is apt to be more efficient than what might otherwise be generated by the compiler.
The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs that translate source code from a high-level programming language to a low-level programming language (e.g. assembly language, object code, or machine code) to create an executable program. [1] [2]: p1 [3] There are many different types of compilers which produce output in different useful forms.
Translation of assembly language into machine language. A much more human-friendly rendition of machine language, named assembly language, uses mnemonic codes to refer to machine code instructions, rather than using the instructions' numeric values directly, and uses symbolic names to refer to storage locations and sometimes registers. [3]
HLA's compile-time language allows extending the language with ease, even creating small domain-specific languages to help easily solve common programming problems. The macro stdout.put is a good example of a sophisticated macro that can simplify programming.
The first of these, the Basic Assembly Language (BAL), is an extremely restricted assembly language, introduced in 1964 and used on 360 systems with only 8 KB of main memory, and only a card reader, a card punch, and a printer for input/output, as part of IBM Basic Programming Support (BPS/360).
Programming techniques, such as overlaying a block of stored instructions or data with another as needed, can conceal paging issues from the application programmer. For example, the Modula-2 compiler produces code under which the run-time system swaps 8 Kb pages into memory as individual procedures receive control. [4]
The language Go uses a generic, portable assembly as a form of p-code, implemented by Ken Thompson as an extension of the work on Plan 9 from Bell Labs. Unlike Common Language Runtime (CLR) bytecode or JVM bytecode, there is no stable specification and the Go build tools do not emit a bytecode format to be used at a later time.