While, Do While, For loops in Assembly Language (emu8086)

Question

I want to convert simple loops in high-level languages into assembly language (for emu8086) say, I have this code:

 for(int x = 0; x<=3; x++)
 {
  //Do something!
 }

or

 int x=1;
 do{
 //Do something!
 }
 while(x==1)

or

 while(x==1){
 //Do something
 }

How do I do this in emu8086?

Answer 1

For-loops:

For-loop in C:

for(int x = 0; x<=3; x++)
{
    //Do something!
}

The same loop in 8086 assembler:

        xor cx,cx   ; cx-register is the counter, set to 0
loop1   nop         ; Whatever you wanna do goes here, should not change cx
        inc cx      ; Increment
        cmp cx,3    ; Compare cx to the limit
        jle loop1   ; Loop while less or equal

That is the loop if you need to access your index (cx). If you just wanna to something 0-3=4 times but you do not need the index, this would be easier:

        mov cx,4    ; 4 iterations
loop1   nop         ; Whatever you wanna do goes here, should not change cx
        loop loop1  ; loop instruction decrements cx and jumps to label if not 0

If you just want to perform a very simple instruction a constant amount of times, you could also use an assembler-directive which will just hardcore that instruction

times 4 nop

Do-while-loops

Do-while-loop in C:

int x=1;
do{
    //Do something!
}
while(x==1)

The same loop in assembler:

        mov ax,1
loop1   nop         ; Whatever you wanna do goes here
        cmp ax,1    ; Check wether cx is 1
        je loop1    ; And loop if equal

While-loops

While-loop in C:

while(x==1){
    //Do something
}

The same loop in assembler:

        jmp loop1   ; Jump to condition first
cloop1  nop         ; Execute the content of the loop
loop1   cmp ax,1    ; Check the condition
        je cloop1   ; Jump to content of the loop if met

For the for-loops you should take the cx-register because it is pretty much standard. For the other loop conditions you can take a register of your liking. Of course replace the no-operation instruction with all the instructions you wanna perform in the loop.