Translation of Bitwise Operations

Take an example of this C code. This code is inside some function.

int a = 4;
int b = 8;
int c = a | b;
int d = b & c;

Location of local variables of the stack (local variables are explained here).

a => -4(%ebp)
b => -8(%ebp)
c => -12(%ebp)
d => -16(%ebp)

The use of registers as temporary memory is described here
Generated assembly code:

movl    $4, -4(%ebp)
movl    $8, -8(%ebp)
movl    -8(%ebp), %eax
movl    -4(%ebp), %edx
orl     %edx, %eax
movl    %eax, -12(%ebp)
movl    -12(%ebp), %eax
movl    -8(%ebp), %edx
andl    %edx, %eax
movl    %eax, -16(%ebp)

Comments on generated assembly code:

# a = 4
movl    $4, -4(%ebp)

# b = 8
movl    $8, -8(%ebp)

# tmp = b
movl    -8(%ebp), %eax

# tmp2 = a
movl    -4(%ebp), %edx

# tmp = tmp | tmp2
orl %edx, %eax

# c = tmp
movl    %eax, -12(%ebp)

# tmp = c
movl    -12(%ebp), %eax

# tmp2 = b
movl    -8(%ebp), %edx

# tmp = tmp & tmp2
andl    %edx, %eax

# d = tmp
movl    %eax, -16(%ebp)

Content of (local)variables are moved to registers then assembly instructions for bitwise operators (in the example above, andl and olr )are used then the value again stored back into the memory.