Intel Pentium Instruction Set Reference

BOUND - Check Array Index Against Bounds

Description

Determines if the first operand (array index) is within the bounds of an array specified the second operand (bounds operand). The array index is a signed integer located in a register. The bounds operand is a memory location that contains a pair of signed doubleword-integers (when the operand-size attribute is 32) or a pair of signed word-integers (when the operand-size attribute is 16). The first doubleword (or word) is the lower bound of the array and the second doubleword (or word) is the upper bound of the array. The array index must be greater than or equal to the lower bound and less than or equal to the upper bound plus the operand size in bytes. If the index is not within bounds, a BOUND range exceeded exception (#BR) is signaled. (When a this exception is generated, the saved return instruction pointer points to the BOUND instruction.)

The bounds limit data structure (two words or doublewords containing the lower and upper limits of the array) is usually placed just before the array itself, making the limits addressable via a constant offset from the beginning of the array. Because the address of the array already will be present in a register, this practice avoids extra bus cycles to obtain the effective address of the array bounds.

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