The Art of Arm Assembly

Modern Instructions for 64-Bit ARM CPUs

Building on Randall Hyde’s iconic series, The Art of ARM Assembly delves into programming 64-bit ARM CPUs--the powerhouses behind iPhones, Macs, Chromebooks, servers, and embedded systems.

Following a fast-paced introduction to the art of programming in assembly and the GNU Assembler (Gas) specifically, you’ll explore memory organization, data representation, and the basic logical operations you can perform on simple data types. You’ll learn how to define constants, write functions, manage local variables, and pass parameters efficiently. You’ll explore both basic and advanced arithmetic operations, control structures, numeric conversions, lookup tables, and string manipulation--in short, you’ll cover it all.

You’ll also dive into ARM SIMD (Neon) instructions, bit manipulation, and macro programming with the Gas assembler, as well as how to:

• Declare pointers and use composite data structures like strings, arrays, and unions
• Convert simple and complex arithmetic expressions into machine instruction sequences
• Use ARM addressing modes and expressions to access memory variables
• Create and use string library functions and build libraries of assembly code using makefiles

This hands-on guide will help you master ARM assembly while revealing the intricacies of modern machine architecture. You’ll learn to write more efficient high-level code and gain a deeper understanding of software-hardware interactions--essential skills for any programmer working with ARM-based systems.

Randall Hyde is a senior embedded software engineer who has worked in the medical, nuclear, consumer electronics, and entertainment industries. He taught assembly language programming at the university level for over 10 years, and is the author of The Art of Assembly Language, The Art of 64-bit Assembly, The Book of I2C, and the Write Great Code series, all from No Starch Press.