Usage

Inline assembly

The __asm keyword can incorporate inline GCC syntax assembly code into a function. For example:

#include <stdio.h>

int add(int i, int j)
{
  int res = 0;
  __asm (
    "ADD %[result], %[input_i], %[input_j]"
    : [result] "=r" (res)
    : [input_i] "r" (i), [input_j] "r" (j)
  );
  return res;
}

int main(void)
{
  int a = 1;
  int b = 2;
  int c = 0;

  c = add(a,b);

  printf("Result of %d + %d = %d\n", a, b, c);
}

The general form of an __asm inline assembly statement is:

__asm(code [: output_operand_list [: input_operand_list [: clobbered_register_list]]]);

code is the assembly code. In our example, this is "ADD %[result], %[input_i], %[input_j]".

output_operand_list is an optional list of output operands, separated by commas. Each operand consists of a symbolic name in square brackets, a constraint string, and a C expression in parentheses. In our example, there is a single output operand: [result] "=r" (res).

input_operand_list is an optional list of input operands, separated by commas. Input operands use the same syntax as output operands. In our example there are two input operands: [input_i] "r" (i), [input_j] "r" (j).

clobbered_register_list is an optional list of clobbered registers. In our example, this is omitted.

Assembly labels

The __asm keyword can specify an assembly label for a C symbol. For example:

int count __asm__("count_v1"); // export count_v1, not count