What will the following instruction do?
INC EBX

Question

Question

This question was previously asked in

Beltron Programmer 1 Oct 2023 Official Paper

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Answer 1

The correct answer is Option 4) Increment value in 32-bit register.

Key Points

INC is an assembly language instruction that increases the value of a register or memory location by 1.
EBX is a 32-bit general-purpose register in the x86 architecture.
INC EBX increments the current 32-bit value stored in the EBX register by 1.
This is commonly used in loop counters or arithmetic operations within low-level programming.

Additional Information

Option 1 – Incorrect: There is no syntax error in INC EBX; it's a valid assembly instruction.
Option 2 – Partially Correct: It’s true that it increments the value in EBX, but the option lacks clarity about register size.
Option 3 – Incorrect: EBX is a 32-bit register, not an 8-bit one. The 8-bit part would be BL.
Related Registers:
- AX, BX, CX, DX – 16-bit registers
- AL, BL, CL, DL – 8-bit lower halves
- EAX, EBX, ECX, EDX – 32-bit registers
- RAX, RBX, RCX, RDX – 64-bit registers (x86-64 architecture)