ARM THE CONDITION FIELD

    In ARM state, all instructions are conditionally executed according to the state of the CPSR condition codes and the instruction's condition field. This field (bits 31:28) determines the circumstances under which an instruction is to be executed. If the state of the C, N, Z and V flags fulfils the conditions encoded by the field, the instruction is executed, otherwise it is ignored.

    There are sixteen possible conditions, each represented by a two-character suffix that can be appended to the instruction's mnemonic. For example, a Branch (B in assembly language) becomes BEQ for "Branch if Equal", which means the Branch will only be taken if the Z flag is set.

    In practice, fifteen different conditions may be used: these are listed in Table. The sixteenth (1111) is reserved, and must not be used.

    In the absence of a suffix, the condition field for most instructions is set to "Always" (suffix AL). This means the instruction will always be executed regardless of the CPSR condition codes.

Table . Condition Code Summary

Code Suffix Flags Meaning

0000 EQ Z set equal

0001 NE Z clear not equal

0010 CS C set unsigned higher or same

0011 CC C clear unsigned lower

0100 MI N set negative

0101 PL N clear positive or zero

0110 VS V set overflow

0111 VC V clear no overflow

1000 HI C set and Z clear unsigned higher

1001 LS C clear or Z set unsigned lower or same

1010 GE N equals V greater or equal

1011 LT N not equal to V less than

1100 GT Z clear AND (N equals V) greater than

1101 LE Z set OR (N not equal to V) less than or equal

1110 AL (ignored) always