No-op
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Revision as of 15:15, 2 March 2018 by Jnc (talk | contribs) (Created page with "A '''no-op''' (or 'NOP') is an instruction which does nothing ('no operation'). In the early days, programmers would include NOP's to allow patching loaded programs du...")
A no-op (or 'NOP') is an instruction which does nothing ('no operation'). In the early days, programmers would include NOP's to allow patching loaded programs during debugging. Modern machines may use them for timing or other purposes (e.g. in machines with delayed branches, if no suitable instruction can be found to go behind the delayed branch).