Registers and Data Types

Here we'll be studying x86 and x86-64 architecture registers, following mainly Intel Pattern. In order to store data in general, the main "thing" we use are registers.

Registers

At x86 architecture there are eight 32-bit general purpose registers (GPRs), some of them can also be divided into 8 and 16-bit registers.

General Purpose Registers

Register

Purpose

16 - Bits

8 Bits

EAX

Acumulator, used for arithmetic operations and to store results

AX

AH-AL

EBX

Base register for the stack

-

-

ECX

Counter in loops

-

-

EDX

Used to store addresses of the data

-

-

Address Registers

Register

Purpose

16 - Bits

ESI

Source in string/memory operations

SI

EDI

Destination in string/memory operations

DI

EBP

Base Frame Pointer

BP

ESP

Stack Pointer

SP

Another registers

Register

Purpose

16 - Bits

EIP

Instruction Pointer (Program counter)

-

EFLAGS

Store operations - Ex: Flag Zero

-

Instruction set

The x86 instruction set are around the data movement between registers and memory, classified in 5 types:

  • Immediate to register

  • Register to register

  • Immediate to memory

  • Register to memory and vice versa

  • Memory to memory - Only in RISC architectures.

x86

The focus here will be the Intel syntax. AT&T prefixes the register with % and immediates with $, which doesn't happen at Intel. They also add a prefix to the instruction to indicate operation width (long, byte, etc.). At Intel syntax the destination come and then the source (op dest source), at AT&T it is the opposite. Instructions have variable-lenght (1 to 15 bytes).

x86 uses [] to indicate memory access (similar to * at C/C++) In order to sum or subtract address inside [] usually is used hexadecimal, for example:        mov eax [ecx+10h] - Where the h is used to indicate hexadecimal notation.

  • MOV - mov ecx, [eax]

           Sets ecx = [eax]

  • ADD - inc dword ptr [eax]

           Increments value at address eax.

  • SUB - sub eax, 0x20

           Subtracts eax by 0x20.

  • PUSH - push eax        Pushes eax at the stack

  • CMP - cmp eax, ebx        if(eax == ebx) Sets eflags;

  • JNE - jne 0x400086        Jumps to given address if eflags was set to equal.

  • CALL - call 0x400086        Jumps to given address and saves current location at stack.

  • RET - ret

           Pops the address of the stack and returns control to that location - ("jump").

  • LEA - lea eax, [esp+0x1c]

           Moves address of register to another (eax = esp+0x1c), used to pass parameters

  • LEAVE - leave

           Moves ebp to esp and pops ebp from the stack.

ARM

  • Load Word - LDR R3, [R3]

           Read the value at address R3.

  • Store Word - STR R2, [R3]

           Store the value from R2 at address R3.

  • Add to register - ADDS R2, R3, #1

           Add 1 to R3 and store at R2.

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