Is it possible to access 32-bit registers in C?

Question

Is it possible to access 32-bit registers in C ? If it is, how ? And if not, then is there any way to embed Assembly code in C ? I`m using the MinGW compiler, by the way. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

If you want to only read the register, you can simply:

register int ecx asm("ecx");

Obviously it's tied to instantiation.

Another way is using inline assembly. For example:

asm("movl %%ecx, %0;" : "=r" (value) : );

This stores the ecx value into the variable value. I've already posted a similar answer here.

Answer 2

Which registers do you want to access?

General purpose registers normally can not be accessed from C. You can declare register variables in a function, but that does not specify which specific registers are used. Further, most compilers ignore the register keyword and optimize the register usage automatically.

In embedded systems, it is often necessary to access peripheral registers (such as timers, DMA controllers, I/O pins). Such registers are usually memory-mapped, so they can be accessed from C...

by defining a pointer:

volatile unsigned int *control_register_ptr = (unsigned int*) 0x00000178;

or by using pre-processor:

#define control_register (*(unsigned int*) 0x00000178)

Or, you can use Assembly routine.

For using Assembly language, there are (at least) three possibilities:

1. A separate .asm source file that is linked with the program. The assembly routines are called from C like normal functions. This is probably the most common method and it has the advantage that hw-dependent functions are separated from the application code.
2. In-line assembly
3. Intrinsic functions that execute individual assembly language instructions. This has the advantage that the assembly language instruction can directly access any C variables.