I've been trying to get a good hold on the x86 assembly language, and was wondering if there was a quick-and-short equivalent of movl $1, %eax. That's when I thought that a list of idioms used frequently in the language would perhaps be a good idea.

This could include the preferred use of xorl %eax, %eax as opposed to movl $0, %eax, or testl %eax, %eax against cmpl $0, %eax.

Oh, and kindly post one example per post!