APSR, Application Program Status Register
The APSR characteristics are:
Purpose
Hold program status and control information.
Configuration
This register is present only when AArch32 is supported at any Exception level. Otherwise, direct accesses to APSR are UNKNOWN.
Attributes
APSR is a 32-bit register.
Field descriptions
The APSR bit assignments are:
N, bit [31]
Negative condition flag. Set to bit[31] of the result of the last flag-setting instruction. If the result is regarded as a two's complement signed integer, then N is set to 1 if the result was negative, and N is set to 0 if the result was positive or zero.
Z, bit [30]
Zero condition flag. Set to 1 if the result of the last flag-setting instruction was zero, and to 0 otherwise. A result of zero often indicates an equal result from a comparison.
C, bit [29]
Carry condition flag. Set to 1 if the last flag-setting instruction resulted in a carry condition, for example an unsigned overflow on an addition.
V, bit [28]
Overflow condition flag. Set to 1 if the last flag-setting instruction resulted in an overflow condition, for example a signed overflow on an addition.
Q, bit [27]
Cumulative saturation bit. Set to 1 to indicate that overflow or saturation occurred in some instructions.
Bits [26:20]
Reserved, RES0.
GE, bits [19:16]
Greater than or Equal flags, for parallel addition and subtraction.
Bits [15:5]
Reserved, RES0.
Bit [4]
Reserved, RES1.
Bits [3:0]
Reserved, RES0.
It is permitted that, on a read of APSR:
-
Bit[22] returns the value of PSTATE.PAN
-
Bit[9] returns the value of PSTATE.E.
-
Bits[8:6] return the value of PSTATE.{A, I, F}, the mask bits.
-
Bit[4:0] returns the value of PSTATE.M[4:0]
This is an exception to the general rule that an UNKNOWN field must not return information that cannot be obtained, at the current Privilege level, by an architected mechanism.
For more information see 'The Application Program Status Register, APSR'.
Accessing the APSR
APSR can be read using the MRS instruction and written using the MSR (register) or MSR (immediate) instructions.