Assembly program to decrement loop counter

1 answer

Here is an example program in assembly language that decrements a loop counter:

```
section .data

section .bss

section .text
global _start

_start:
mov cx, 10 ; Initialize the loop counter to 10
loop_start:
dec cx ; Decrement the loop counter
cmp cx, 0 ; Check if the counter is zero
je loop_exit ; If the counter is zero, exit the loop
jmp loop_start ; Otherwise, continue looping

loop_exit:
; Your code to exit the loop goes here
; For example, you could print a message or
; perform some other action before exiting
; the program
mov eax, 1 ; Exit system call
xor ebx, ebx ; Exit status code
int 0x80 ; Call kernel

```

In this example, the program initializes the loop counter to 10 using the `mov` instruction, then enters a loop using the `jmp` instruction. At the beginning of each iteration of the loop, the program decrements the loop counter using the `dec` instruction, then checks whether the counter is zero using the `cmp` instruction. If the counter is zero, the program branches to the `loop_exit` label using the `je` instruction. Otherwise, the program jumps back to the beginning of the loop using the `jmp` instruction.

Note that the loop is implemented using conditional branching instructions (`je` and `jmp`). Other looping constructs, such as `for` or `while` loops, can be implemented using different instructions and constructs. The specific instructions used will depend on the requirements of the program and the architecture of the CPU being used.