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I've been taught that "assembly" is what you write in your files, to have your "assembler" convert it into binary code.

But I see these two terms mixed and matched in various works. I've even heard that you write "assembler", after which an "assemblator" makes it executable.

Tell me, please, what's the right words to use?

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assembly to assembler, is like c to gcc. –  arsane Jul 24 '09 at 7:51
Possible duplicate: stackoverflow.com/questions/991009/… –  Eliseo Ocampos Jul 24 '09 at 14:50
Don't forget about .net assemblies, they creates one more "terminology bug" –  zxcat Sep 9 '09 at 6:37
Personally I think it went wrong when the term "National Assembly" was introduced during the French revolution :-) –  Marco van de Voort Nov 26 '09 at 22:48
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7 Answers

up vote 26 down vote accepted

Actually, the language is called "Assembly Language", and the tool to convert it to machine code is the "Assembler".

More info on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_language

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The purpose of language is to communicate.

If people say things, and other people understand them, they are using the correct terms.

We have rules to make it easier to understand, but in my opinion, if you say what sounds best for you, and let other people say what sounds best for them, and you all understand what you all mean, then everything will be peachy.

For what it's worth, I prefer to write "assembly" and assemble it with an "assembler." I think "assemblator" should be the word of the day someday, and everyone should try to use it as often as possible.

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This is true in most cases but sometimes a situation is created where 2 people are talking about the same thing and they have no idea. –  smack0007 Jul 24 '09 at 7:10
+1 You just assemblatoratificated my day ;-) –  balpha Jul 24 '09 at 7:20
@smack - This is possible, but I've never seen anyone who was genuinely confused about the difference between "assembly language" and "assembler language" - most people who are smart enough to know what assembly language is are smart enough to figure out when someone calls it by a slightly different name. –  Chris Lutz Jul 24 '09 at 7:22
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The assembly is a piece of code/executable that is in machine executable code. This might be an obj, exe, dll, ... It is the result of a compile.

The assembler is the "compiler" that compiles code into machine executable code. This code has been written in the language "Assembly Language". Assembly language in common English is often called Assembler.

Assemblator seems to be a creative word, born out of necessity to reduce confusion caused by missusing the other terms or a term in a foreign language (see other answers).

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In microsoft-land, that may be true, but long before .NET came out, people used the word assembly as short-hand for "assembly code" - that is, the source code you provide as input to an assembler to generate a file containing machine code. –  George Jul 23 '10 at 2:30
@George I am an old timer, started programming on computers that almost filled rooms, and this was the use and definition of the words. People started to use them in a sloppy way pretty soon. –  malach Jul 23 '10 at 4:46
@Ralph Rickenbach Sorry, I didn't mean to sound condescending in my previous comment. That's just how I'd always heard the terms used until .NET came along and decided to use the word "assembly" to mean something different. –  George Jul 23 '10 at 11:24
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This might be a (human) language issue - the Swedish word for "assembler" appears to be "assemblator"...

See also: http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assemblator

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I honestly don't know if there is a 'standard' terminology that suitably differentiates all these concepts. (Example: If I say "ASM" what am I talking about?)

I can give you my definitions, if that helps any.

Machine Code

This is the compiled output of an assembler or compiler.


This is the human readable form of machine code. (Or, machine code as we know it.)

I sometimes use the term assembly in place of machine code because it's implied that I'm not going to actually read the machine code, but rather the assembly.

Assembly Language

This refers to a specific machine code language such as x86 assembly.


This is a tool like MASM\FASM used for compiling source code into machine code.

Assembler Language

This is the language used by any given assembler.

I view this as being different from assembly language because assemblers can add their own syntactic sugar which does not exist in the underlying assembly language. (High level functions, macros, etc,.)

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I'm guessing the origin of these terms goes back to the classic dictionary defintion of assembly: "an assembly of machine instructions to achieve a purpose" which is probably how the computing pioneers thought of a small group of machine instructions. Then an "assembler" is a device that takes individual machine instructions an puts them together into an "assembly".

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Assembler equals the compiler in c++ and Interpreter in Java.. :)
They have some differences though...

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