Machine Code Language

A Machine Code Language is a formal language that can be executed directly by a central processing unit.

• AKA: Machine Language.
• See: Interpreter (Computing), Instruction (Computer Science), Computer, Central Processing Unit, Jump Instruction, Arithmetic Logic Unit, Processor Register, Assembly Code, Compiled, Assembly Language, Computer Program, Computer Hardware, Programming Language.

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References

2015

• (Wikipedia, 2015) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/machine_code Retrieved:2015-2-13.
  • Machine code or machine language is a set of instructions executed directly by a computer's central processing unit (CPU). Each instruction performs a very specific task, such as a load, a jump, or an ALU operation on a unit of data in a CPU register or memory. Every program directly executed by a CPU is made up of a series of such instructions.

    Numerical machine code (i.e. not assembly code) may be regarded as the lowest-level representation of a compiled and/or assembled computer program or as a primitive and hardware-dependent programming language. While it is possible to write programs directly in numerical machine code, it is tedious and error prone to manage individual bits and calculate numerical addresses and constants manually. It is therefore rarely done today, except for situations that require extreme optimization or debugging.

    Almost all practical programs today are written in higher-level languages or assembly language, and translated to executable machine code by a compiler and/or assembler and linker. Programs in interpreted languages are not translated into machine code however, although their interpreter (which may be seen as an executor or processor) typically consists of directly executable machine code (generated from assembly and/or high level language source code).

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