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General Forums => The Campus => Topic started by: Sergiu FUNIERU on March 01, 2010, 01:00:24 AM

Title: The mov that copies
Post by: Sergiu FUNIERU on March 01, 2010, 01:00:24 AM
The mov mnemonic was one of the hardest to understand.

In my mind, to mov(e) means to copy then to delete the original. It seems that in asm "mov" practically means "copy".

Is any reason for calling the copy mov(e)? Is there any cop mnemonic?
Title: Re: The mov that copies
Post by: hutch-- on March 01, 2010, 01:27:22 AM
Sergiu,

You are arguing with history here, the MOV family of mnemonics on x86 entail copy data from the source operand to the destination operand. The term copy is generally a bit wider with many data types and sizes.
Title: Re: The mov that copies
Post by: Sergiu FUNIERU on March 01, 2010, 01:29:43 AM
Quote from: hutch-- on March 01, 2010, 01:27:22 AMThe term copy is generally a bit wider with many data types and sizes.
Interesting! That's a difference I didn't think of.
Title: Re: The mov that copies
Post by: joemc on March 01, 2010, 01:30:17 AM
When i think copy i think from memory to memory, which is two movs, or a push and a pop. but i can see what you are saying.
Title: Re: The mov that copies
Post by: dedndave on March 01, 2010, 01:45:28 AM
on many non-intel processors, it is LOAD, LD, LOD