Home/ Questions/Q 751685
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-14T14:41:42+00:00

LEA EAX, [EAX] I encountered this instruction in a binary compiled with the Microsoft

  • 0
LEA EAX, [EAX]

I encountered this instruction in a binary compiled with the Microsoft C compiler. It clearly can’t change the value of EAX. Then why is it there?

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    It is a NOP.

    The following are typcially used as NOP. They all do the same thing but they result in machine code of different length. Depending on the alignment requirement one of them is chosen:

    xchg eax, eax         = 90
mov eax, eax          = 89 C0 
lea eax, [eax + 0x00] = 8D 40 00
    • 0