Are Windows exe files assembly...?

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Hi!
It's my first question on CodeProject (I left Stackoverflow).
I've been thinking about making my own programming language for Windows but I don't even know what the exe files actually are(!). Sometime ago, somebody told me that they are binary, but that for sure is wrong, because the same exe files don't run on another OS. And there is different binary for different processors, but the same exe files run of multiple processors. These are my questions:

Are Windows exe files written in assembly? If no, then in what language?

From where can I learn the language in which exe files are written?

If someone can help me with these, I'd really appreciate their help.

Posted 25-Jul-15 23:09pm

Nafees Hassan

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Michael_Davies 26-Jul-15 5:49am

Try Google.

http://www.fileformat.info/format/exe/corion-mz.htm

[no name] 26-Jul-15 7:32am

You are confusing the programming language "Assembly", with the .NET notion of an assembly to refer to exe and DLL files. They have nothing to do with each other.

4 solutions

Solution 3

Yes, exe files (like all files) are binary. However, the structure of the binary content is in a special format that the Windows OS can read and load into memory to be run. Google will find you papers that explain the structire of intermediate .obj files, which are created from source code. Also .exe files which are created from .obj and .lib files to make the final executable. If you are planning to invent a new language then you also need to understand how compilers turn source language into relocatable object code.

Posted 26-Jul-15 1:35am

Richard MacCutchan

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enhzflep 27-Jul-15 0:17am

No-one else mentioned relocation - an important point.
My 5.

Richard MacCutchan 27-Jul-15 4:05am

Thanks. It's amazing what you remember when you start to think about some of these questions.

enhzflep 27-Jul-15 23:57pm

:Laughs:
Yeah, I've still got part's of Ralph Brown's x86 interrupt list locked away in the memory banks. I don't recall using any of it since about 97 or so. :)

Solution 4

In addition to existing answers:

First of all, files like .EXE and .DLL are not assemblies. They are all executable files in the form of PE file. From the .NET standpoint, they are modules of the assemblies, not assemblies themselves.
Please see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Executable[^],
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_%28CLI%29[^].

One of the main contributors to the common confusion is Visual Studio, which directly support only the assemblies with only one module. But you can develop with just the compiler, which allows to create a module, not assembly, and then put module together and give assembly manifest only to one module. This way, an assembly will have several files, all being executable modules of the same assembly.

Still, reflection allows you to load and assembly and see what are the modules, so the possibility of having several modules is in the .NET BCL. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_(CLI)[^].

Also, it's good to know that there is not essential difference between .EXE and .DLL. They are just naming conventions. Normally, there are library assemblies which are allowed to be compiled without entry point (Main method). It's not very obvious fact, but EXE assemblies can be referenced exactly as libraries (DLL assemblies). There are even cases when it can be a useful programming technique.

—SA

Posted 26-Jul-15 19:04pm

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov

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Wendelius · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-25T23:34:00

There's actually no single type for an EXE other than it (most often) is an executable file. The actual type of the program is defined in the header in the file. It can be a directly executable file which I believe you mean with binary or it can be a file that is some intermediate language such as MSIL which is interpreted at the run time.

Have a look at:
- .exe[^]
- MSIL[^]

About the language to wrote programs, there are many. Languages like C or even Assembler have been used for a long time to write programs. These days there's much more variety in languages to choose from like C#, Java and so on. Using an Assembler or a C compiler source code from those languages would have often been compiled to a native (from the OS point of view), binary exe whereas code written in C# results to an interpretative code by the compiler.

OriginalGriff · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-25T23:31:00

Solution 1

Windows exes are written in a range of languages: if it compiles to an EXE file, it's been used.
So...assembler, C, C++, C#, VB, Pascal, Fortran, Cobol, BrainF*ck, and probably a couple of dozen others have been used. Even Windows itself is written in C, C++, C#. Some parts probably still in assembler!

Learn a language. Get skilled in it. I'd suggest you start in C# myself, but there are those who will suggest VB, or C++. No-one will suggest you start with assembler these days!

So get a book - Addison Wesley and Wrox do good ones - or go on a course. Don;t try to learn by picking it up as you go, you will miss too many important things. Get a copy of Visual Studio from Microsoft - they do free editions - and follow the course or book from beginning to end, doing all the exercises.

Posted 25-Jul-15 23:31pm

OriginalGriff

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Nafees Hassan 26-Jul-15 5:34am

Thanks, but that's not what I asked in the question. I am an experienced programmer (I know Delphi, C++, C#, PHP, and a lot more). I asked that: I need to create a compiler, and for that I need to know what exe files are written in (like a *.pas file means that the file is written in pascal)

enhzflep 26-Jul-15 7:21am

There are 4 question-marks in your original post. They immediately follow the text
■ Are Windows exe files assembly...
■ Are Windows exe files written in assembly
■ If no, then in what language
■ From where can I learn the language in which exe files are written

Each of these questions were addressed by Griff. If your question wasn't addressed, it's because you didn't ask it.

You'll need to study the architecture of (at least) the x86 family of processors. A compiler-course would be beneficial.
You may find it useful to read-up on Lex, Yacc and Bison.

Be aware - this is far from trivial.
You may find some value in coding an assembler for a fairly basic cpu - one without all of the addressing-modes of the x86 architecture may well be manageable on your own.

20 odd years ago we wrote assemblers for the 6501/6502 processors. It actually wasn't that hard at all - it was only a 3 or 4 week assignment. You can see in the following link that the 6502 is really quite simple: MOS Technology 6502 cpu

Just look-up the opcodes for the various mnemonics and you should be good to go.

Wendelius 26-Jul-15 5:38am

+5 just for the BrainF... alone :laugh:

Afzaal Ahmad Zeeshan 26-Jul-15 8:09am

OriginalGriff, the term is Assembly, not Assembler. I would say, the post needs an edit. :-) Assembler is just the program that converts those commands (written in Assembly) into machine executable instructions.

I would personally also prefer C#, who needs to write 100 lines for a hello world program and another 500 to manage the memory. ;-)

OriginalGriff 26-Jul-15 8:29am

Um...you sure? :laugh:
http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/definition/assembler
"An assembler is a program that takes basic computer instructions and converts them into a pattern of bits that the computer's processor can use to perform its basic operations. Some people call these instructions assembler language and others use the term assembly language."

The names are interchangeable - and have been since I started with PDP8 assembler way back when...

Afzaal Ahmad Zeeshan 26-Jul-15 12:53pm

Programmers can never rely on just one thing. It is pretty much ambiguous as to what would, Assembler (interpreter), refer to then? Too much ambiguity there is. :sigh:

Anyways, since it is a very common fault. I apologize for my words. :-)

Afzaal Ahmad Zeeshan 28-Jul-15 1:52am

Paul, it took me some time to understand what Richard meant, in a mild way, that is why I was not able to respond respectively. Anyways, I apologize for my way of talk, if that was unethical. :-) I hope, we're good here.

OriginalGriff 28-Jul-15 2:05am

No problem! :laugh:

Afzaal Ahmad Zeeshan 28-Jul-15 2:06am

:-)

Richard MacCutchan 27-Jul-15 4:07am

Blimey you are brave. Very few people here have the temerity to question the words of the great "Mr Million". :)

Afzaal Ahmad Zeeshan 27-Jul-15 7:18am

Thank you for your kind words, Richard. I believe (as a student and learner) it is good to keep things unambiguous. So, where I had a problem understanding maybe someone with little understanding than me would be totally BrainFuck-ed, mind the programming language. :-)

With all due respect to "Mr. Million", there is another Mr. Million (Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov), by whom I came to learn that if no one raises voice to wrong, it becomes the only right. If other minors also raised their voice, today Unicode would have been just a mathematical representation regardless of encoding, whereas now Microsoft (to some a giant) has converted Unicode into an encoding; UTF-16 LE is Unicode on .NET. Which, this Mr. Million also agrees to. :-) The names are interchangeable - and have been since I started with PDP8 assembler way back when....

Richard MacCutchan 27-Jul-15 7:31am

Sorry, I forgot rhe joke icon. You were not meant to take my comment seriously.

One of the problems I (as a native English speaker) have with people like you (who write almost perfect English) is that I assume you recognise the nuances of language that we take for granted. If I could still speak the Urdu I learned as a child I could even apologise in a better way.

Afzaal Ahmad Zeeshan 27-Jul-15 7:34am

If you forgot to joke icon, then what was the 2 character string at the end of your comment? :laugh:

But, you are right. :-) We pay attention to grammar, not pronunciation.

Richard MacCutchan 27-Jul-15 7:37am

So I forgot that I didn't forget. :(

Afzaal Ahmad Zeeshan 27-Jul-15 7:38am

See, now I am confused at to where does the pun start and where does it end. ;)

OriginalGriff 27-Jul-15 7:51am

So...MetaAlzheimer's then! :laugh:

Are Windows exe files assembly...?

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