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Are assembly languages untyped?

Submitted by: @import:stackexchange-cs··
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areassemblyuntypedlanguages

Problem

I'm writing my Bsc thesis about type systems of various languages and I want to have a short section about assembly languages. Initially I thought I'll bring up assembly as a counter example to languages with advanced type systems. My goal was to explore the reasons why assembly omits most (all?) type system features but eventually I found papers about typed assembly languages and I started to get confused.
So here are my questions:

  • Can we say that assembly is generally untyped? If so, what is the reason we don't have assemblers with advanced types and type checkers?



  • Arguments for having a typed assembly language?



Here is a list of papers about typed assembly languages from the end of the last century: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/talc/papers.html.
Links to other papers are highly appreciated!

Solution

Assembly language is normally untyped, in the sense that there is no type-checking. Adding type-checking is a non-trivial research challenge (hence the papers you see). Papers on typed assembly language should explain the motivation. One application is that they can be used to support proof-carrying code, which can be used to securely execute untrusted code. Another potential application is to support formal verification. But I suggest reading some of the key papers to see what they say about the applications and motivation for typed assembly language.

You can find other papers yourself by doing a literature search -- see https://crypto.stackexchange.com/q/8316/351.

Context

StackExchange Computer Science Q#118949, answer score: 3

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