How to represent hex value such as FFFFFFBB in x86 assembly programming?

Question

I'm learning about x86 inline assembly programming.

I wanted to write mov ecx, FFFFFFBB, however the compiler isn’t recognizing it. How should hex numbers like that be written in inline assembler code?

Answer 1

See the x86 tag wiki for links to assembler manuals, and lots of other stuff.

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Different x86 assemblers support one or both of these syntaxes for hex constants:

• 0xDEADBEEF: NASM (and compat), GNU as, FASM, MSVC inline asm (but not MASM), emu8086.
• 0DEADBEEFh: NASM (and compat), FASM, MASM, TASM, emu8086.

DOS/Windows-only assemblers often only support the ...h syntax.
Portable assemblers typically support the 0x... syntax, or both.

Note the leading 0: Numeric constants always have to start with a decimal digit to distinguish them from symbol names. (How do I write letter-initiated hexadecimal numbers in masm code? is specifically about that, for trailing-h style.)

Also note that assemblers, like C compilers, can evaluate expressions at assemble time, so you can write foo & 0xF (if foo is an assembler constant, defined with foo equ 0xABC or something). You can even add/subtract from labels (which are link-time constants, not assemble-time), so stuff like mov eax, OFFSET label - 20 still assembles to a mov r32, imm32 mov-immediate instruction, just with a different 32-bit immediate.

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From the NASM manual's section on constants:

Some examples (all producing exactly the same code):

    mov     ax,200          ; decimal 
    mov     ax,0200         ; still decimal 
    mov     ax,0200d        ; explicitly decimal 
    mov     ax,0d200        ; also decimal 
    mov     ax,0c8h         ; hex 
    mov     ax,$0c8         ; hex again: the 0 is required 
    mov     ax,0xc8         ; hex yet again 
    mov     ax,0hc8         ; still hex 
    mov     ax,310q         ; octal 
    mov     ax,310o         ; octal again 
    mov     ax,0o310        ; octal yet again 
    mov     ax,0q310        ; octal yet again 
    mov     ax,11001000b    ; binary 
    mov     ax,1100_1000b   ; same binary constant 
    mov     ax,1100_1000y   ; same binary constant once more 
    mov     ax,0b1100_1000  ; same binary constant yet again 
    mov     ax,0y1100_1000  ; same binary constant yet again

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Most assemblers also allow character literals, like '0' for ASCII zero. Or even '0123' for four ASCII digits packed into a 32bit integer. Some support escape sequences (\n'), some (like YASM) don't. NASM only supports escape-sequences inside backquotes, not double quotes.

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Other platforms:

ARM assembler: 0xDEADBEEF works.

I think 0x... is typical. the 0...h is mostly a DOS thing.

Answer 2

It depends on the flavour of your assembler.

• AT&T: movl $0xFFFFFFBB, %ecx
• Intel: mov ecx, 0FFFFFFBBh

FYI, AT&T syntax is used by assemblers such as the GNU Assembler, whereas NASM and most of others use Intel's one.

Answer 3

It depends on your assembler, but a common notation for hex literals is 0FFFFFFBBh.