What are the different processor registers used by the VS C++ compiler?

Question

What are the different registers used by the C++ compiler in a program? What is the difference between SP and FP? If possible please point me to some detailed reference docs. Curious to know the underlying things happening in a compiler. Is it possible to view these registers during the execution of a program in Visual Studio. Appreciate your time and help. Thanks in advance, Light

Answer 1

The answer to your question depends on the hardware you are programming to. Each processor family has it's own architecture and therefore it's own register.

Here is a good reference on Wikipedia for the Intel chips.

Answer 2

There is debugger fou such questions.

Answer 3

You can ask compiler to output the assembler code it generates from your sources, it's /FA and /Fa compiler command line arguments you're looking for: msdn link to /FA compiler arg.
In run-time, when you're running your program under debugger, you can open a "registers" window, and see how the values change during the execution - it can be very useful sometimes. Here's how you do it: msdn doc about "registers" window
If you're going for more serious debugging, I'd recommend investing some time learning to use this: debugging tools for windows instead of just using the built-in VS debugger.

Answer 4

A stack pointer (SP) points into memory and is used to store function call-related data such as function parameters, return address and local variables. This data forms a stack frame for each function call and is pointed at by frame pointer (FP). Each thread of execution has a stack pointer. Each function call has its own stack frame and frame pointer. A stack backtrace works its way back through the stack frames of each nested function call allowing you to see the parameters and local data of each function call.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame%5Fpointer#Structure

The above link contains more description and a picture.