Assembler

Why Trust Techopedia

What Does Assembler Mean?

An assembler is a type of computer program that interprets software programs written in assembly language into machine language, code and instructions that can be executed by a computer.

Advertisements

An assembler enables software and application developers to access, operate and manage a computer’s hardware architecture and components.

An assembler is sometimes referred to as the compiler of assembly language. It also provides the services of an interpreter.

Techopedia Explains Assembler

An assembler primarily serves as the bridge between symbolically coded instructions written in assembly language and the computer processor, memory and other computational components. An assembler works by assembling and converting the source code of assembly language into object code or an object file that constitutes a stream of zeros and ones of machine code, which are directly executable by the processor.

Assemblers are classified based on the number of times it takes them to read the source code before translating it; there are both single-pass and multi-pass assemblers. Moreover, some high-end assemblers provide enhanced functionality by enabling the use of control statements, data abstraction services and providing support for object-oriented programming structures.

Advertisements

Related Terms

Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist
Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.