Most popular assembler?

[cpjust]

Hi, I'm starting to learn Assembly programming and I was wondering which assembler is used most often in the real world?
My book uses GNU's assembler, but I see a lot of posts about MASM... I'd like to spend most of my time learning the assembler format that I'm most likely to use.

Also, in Visual C++ I can use inline assembly using the __asm keyword. Does GCC let me do the same thing or is there a different way to add inline assembly for GCC C++ code?

 

[zeitghost]

It all depends on what you define as the real world...

Assembler isn't used all that much any more for programming pcs.

It's used much more when programming small microcontrollers with limited amounts of memory, such as the Microchip PICs.

You have to pay money to (legally) obtain MASM, whereas other assemblers are "free".

 

[Salem]

> Does GCC let me do the same thing or is there a different way to add inline assembly for GCC C++ code?
Yes, but the syntax is completely different. You'll find this with pretty much every other compilers approach to inline assembly. Having said that, the basic syntax is regular across all the processors GCC targets (though you do still have to know the op-codes for the target processor).

> I'd like to spend most of my time learning the assembler format that I'm most likely to use.
The biggest barrier to learning assembler for me is the vast number of different processors I work on. Not to mention the huge problems of making best use of things like pipelines.

Mostly, I just stick to matching up the output of the C compiler with the source code

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