Patent ID: 8464235

Claim:
A method of operating a microprocessor, the method comprising: executing an assembler program that accepts assembly language source code and transforms the assembly language source code into machine language source code for a target microprocessor, wherein executing the assembler program causes the microprocessor to perform steps of: accessing the assembly language source code and a descriptor file; obtaining from the descriptor file information descriptive of an instruction set of the target microprocessor; using the assembly language source code and the information obtained from the descriptor file to translate the assembly language source code into the machine language source code that conforms to an architecture of the instruction set; and providing as an output the machine language source code conforming to the information, wherein a portion of the assembler program that translates the assembly language source code into the machine language source code is generated before accessing the descriptor file; wherein the descriptor file comprises syntax information for each instruction in the instruction set of the target microprocessor, and wherein executing the assembler program causes the microprocessor to perform a step of translating the assembly language source code into the machine language source code by transliterating each assembly language instruction from the assembly language source code based on the syntax information.