flat assembler 1.73

Programmer’s Manual

Tomasz Grysztar



Chapter 1


Introduction


This chapter contains all the most important information you need to begin using the flat assembler. If you are experienced assembly language programmer, you should read at least this chapter before using this compiler.



1.1 Compiler overview


Flat assembler is a fast assembly language compiler for the x86 architecture processors, which does multiple passes to optimize the size of generated machine code. It is self–compilable and versions for different operating systems are provided. They are designed to be used from the system command line and they should not differ in behavior.


This document describes also the IDE version designed for the Windows system, which uses the graphical interface instead of console and has the integrated editor. But from the compilation point of view it has exactly the same functionality as all the console versions, and so later parts (beginning from 1.2) of this document are common with other releases. The executable of the IDE version is called fasmw.exe, while fasm.exe is the command line version.