What do the brackets mean in x86 asm?

assembly x86 nasm
joek1975 picture joek1975 · Jan 8, 2010 · Viewed 48.3k times · Source

Given the following code:

L1     db    "word", 0

       mov   al, [L1]
       mov   eax, L1

What do the brackets ([L1]) represent?

Answer

interjay picture interjay · Jan 8, 2010

[L1] means the memory contents at address L1. After running mov al, [L1] here, The al register will receive the byte at address L1 (the letter 'w').

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