[fpc-other] asm ... end;

[Tomas Hajny]

On Wed, April 16, 2008 20:00, Alain Michaud wrote:
> Hi,
>
>    here is a simple stupid question for experienced programmers:
>
> When using the inline assembler instructions (asm), one can chose the
> "intel" or "ATT" syntax. Which one is the best, more convenient?

Trying to focus on objective factors (without any ranking - you need to
decide on their weight for you):

- AT&T syntax is available on more platforms as far as I know.

- AT&T syntax is more explicit on e.g. size of operands (you sometimes
need to guess that from context with Intel syntax).

- Intel syntax may be better alternative if you need to consider
interoperability with e.g. Delphi or some other Pascal compilers on x86
platform.

- Considering that majority of Pascal programmers these days have some
background with either TP/BP, Delphi or one of their clones (and these
usually only support Intel syntax), there are probably more Pascal
programmers who understand / prefer Intel syntax.

- If specifically targetting x86 platforms, I believe that there's more
documentation available for Intel syntax too (including reference and
optimization documents directly from CPU producers).

Tomas