The return address in the assembly code

Question

The assembly code goes like this:

  call next
next:
  popl %eax

I thought after call next, the return address will be pushed onto the stack, right? But in the above code, what's the return address?

Answer 1

After that code executes %eax will have the address of label "next"

1. the call branches to the target which happens to be the next sequential instruction and pushes the return address, which is always the address of the next sequential instruction
2. the popl will pop the return address from the stack onto %eax register

The net effect is %eax points to label "next"

Answer 2

It's the address of the instruction immediately following the call instruction. See your CPU documentation on how call works.