Language Converter?

[safiajen0055]

Hello Guys,

I would like to ask that Can we Convert assembly language into Machine language if yes then what is the device is useful for it?

[Bachstelze]

Well, yes. That's what assembly language is for, no? You use an assembler. Depending on what kind of assembly language you have, you can use GNU as (generally via gcc), or nasm/yasm.

[Barrucadu]

In the case of assembly, an assembler is used. In the general case, compilation is the process of taking one formal language (such as assembly, C, Haskell, whatever) and performing a semantics-preserving transformation into another formal language (such as machine code).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiler

[ofnuts]

Let's add, just in case some people didn't figure that out by themselves, that one assembly language is more or less a one-on-one mapping of language instructions to machine instructions, so different architectures will have different assembly languages.

[snip3r8]

Converting a language to machine code is the entire point of a compiler.

[trent.josephsen]

Converting a language to machine code is the entire point of a compiler.
Not if the language is assembly. Then, it's an assembler.

Technically, the more "traditional" role of a compiler is translating a HLL into assembly, which it would then pass off to an assembler. But nowadays there often isn't a meaningful distinction to be made.

[thek3nger]

Not if the language is assembly. Then, it's an assembler.

Technically, the more "traditional" role of a compiler is translating a HLL into assembly, which it would then pass off to an assembler. But nowadays there often isn't a meaningful distinction to be made.

Well, these are the same steps performed by "compiler" like gcc. For example you can see the assembly step with the -S parameter and compile the assembly code with the "as" command. :)

[trent.josephsen]

True, but not all languages have an intermediate "assembly" step. Such as Java/Python/Perl, which are bytecode-compiled and interpreted on the fly. But I don't want to drag this further off topic, unless this is the kind of content OP wanted to hear...

[thek3nger]

Ah yes. Obviously. :) In my post I meant binary-compiled languages and not interpreted ones. :P

Ok... now we can stop with the OT.

[xb12x]

Hello Guys,

I would like to ask that Can we Convert assembly language into Machine language if yes then what is the device is useful for it?


If you want to see the actual machine language created by the assembler you can run objdump on the executable.

Here is an example program written in GNU assembly, hello_asm.s

First build the program by assembling and linking. Then run objdump on the executable to create the list file. The list file will show the machine code for each assembly instruction.

Build Instructions:
as -o hello_asm.o hello_asm.s
ld -o hello_asm -O0 hello_asm.o

Create list file showing machine code:
objdump -S hello_asm > hello_asm.lst

Here is the source file hello_asm.s


## hello_asm.s

## This is a basic demonstration of the GNU assembler, `as'.

## Displays a string on the screen using write() system call

## Build Instructions:
## as -o hello_asm.o hello_asm.s
## ld -o hello_asm -O0 hello_asm.o

## Create list file:
## objdump -S hello_asm > hello_asm.lst

################################################## ######################
.section .data
hello:
.ascii "Hello, world!\n"
hello_len:
.long . - hello
################################################## ######################
.section .text
.globl _start

_start:
## display string using write () system call
xorl %ebx, %ebx # %ebx = 0
movl $4, %eax # write () system call
xorl %ebx, %ebx # %ebx = 0
incl %ebx # %ebx = 1, fd = stdout
leal hello, %ecx # %ecx ---> hello
movl hello_len, %edx # %edx = count
int $0x80 # execute write () system call

## terminate program via _exit () system call
xorl %eax, %eax # %eax = 0
incl %eax # %eax = 1 system call _exit ()
xorl %ebx, %ebx # %ebx = 0 normal program return code
int $0x80 # execute system call _exit ()



Here is the list file created by objdump, hello_asm.lst:


hello_asm: file format elf64-x86-64


Disassembly of section .text:

00000000004000b0 <_start>:
4000b0: 31 db xor %ebx,%ebx
4000b2: b8 04 00 00 00 mov $0x4,%eax
4000b7: 31 db xor %ebx,%ebx
4000b9: ff c3 inc %ebx
4000bb: 8d 0c 25 d4 00 60 00 lea 0x6000d4,%ecx
4000c2: 8b 14 25 e2 00 60 00 mov 0x6000e2,%edx
4000c9: cd 80 int $0x80
4000cb: 31 c0 xor %eax,%eax
4000cd: ff c0 inc %eax
4000cf: 31 db xor %ebx,%ebx
4000d1: cd 80 int $0x80