Instructions
Most instructions are contained within a single, parameterless machine word.
Some instructions take a machine word as argument and are so considered double-word instructions.
They are recognized by the form “instr
+ arg
”.
Regarding Opcodes
An instruction's operation code, or opcode, is the machine word uniquely identifying the instruction. For reasons of efficient arithmetization, certain properties of the instruction are encoded in the opcode. Concretely, interpreting the field element in standard representation:
- for all double-word instructions, the least significant bit is 1.
- for all instructions shrinking the operational stack, the second-to-least significant bit is 1.
- for all u32 instructions , the third-to-least significant bit is 1.
The first property is used by instruction skiz. The second property helps with proving consistency of the Op Stack. The third property allows efficient arithmetization of the running product for the Permutation Argument between Processor Table and U32 Table.
Op Stack Manipulation
Instruction | Opcode | old op stack | new op stack | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|
pop + n | 3 | e.g., _ c b a | e.g., _ | Pops the n top elements from the stack. 1 ⩽ n ⩽ 5 |
push + a | 1 | _ | _ a | Pushes a onto the stack. |
divine + n | 9 | e.g., _ | e.g., _ b a | Pushes n non-deterministic elements a to the stack. Interface for secret input. 1 ⩽ n ⩽ 5 |
dup + i | 17 | e.g., _ e d c b a | e.g., _ e d c b a d | Duplicates the element i positions away from the top. 0 ⩽ i < 16 |
swap + i | 25 | e.g., _ e d c b a | e.g., _ e a c b d | Swaps the i th stack element with the top of the stack. 0 < i < 16 |
Instruction divine n
(together with divine_sibling
) make Triton a virtual machine that can execute non-deterministic programs.
As programs go, this concept is somewhat unusual and benefits from additional explanation.
The name of the instruction is the verb (not the adjective) meaning “to discover by intuition or insight.”
From the perspective of the program, the instruction divine n
makes some n
elements magically appear on the stack.
It is not at all specified what those elements are, but generally speaking, they have to be exactly correct, else execution fails.
Hence, from the perspective of the program, it just non-deterministically guesses the correct values in a moment of divine clarity.
Looking at the entire system, consisting of the VM, the program, and all inputs – both public and secret – execution is deterministic: the divined values were supplied as and are read from secret input.
Control Flow
Instruction | Opcode | old op stack | new op stack | old ip | new ip | old jump stack | new jump stack | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
halt | 0 | _ | _ | ip | ip+1 | _ | _ | Solves the halting problem (if the instruction is reached). Indicates graceful shutdown of the VM. |
nop | 8 | _ | _ | ip | ip+1 | _ | _ | Do nothing |
skiz | 2 | _ a | _ | ip | ip+s | _ | _ | Skip next instruction if a is zero. s ∈ {1, 2, 3} depends on a and whether the next instruction takes an argument. |
call + d | 33 | _ | _ | ip | d | _ | _ (ip+2, d) | Push (ip+2,d) to the jump stack, and jump to absolute address d |
return | 16 | _ | _ | ip | o | _ (o, d) | _ | Pop one pair off the jump stack and jump to that pair's return address (which is the first element). |
recurse | 24 | _ | _ | ip | d | _ (o, d) | _ (o, d) | Peek at the top pair of the jump stack and jump to that pair's destination address (which is the second element). |
assert | 10 | _ a | _ | ip | ip+1 | _ | _ | Pops a if a == 1 , else crashes the virtual machine. |
Memory Access
Instruction | Opcode | old op stack | new op stack | old RAM | new RAM | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
read_mem + n | 41 | e.g., _ p+2 | e.g., _ v2 v1 v0 p-1 | [p: v0, p+1, v1, …] | [p: v0, p+1, v1, …] | Reads consecutive values vi from RAM at address p and puts them onto the op stack. Decrements RAM pointer (st0 ) by n . 1 ⩽ n ⩽ 5 |
write_mem + n | 11 | e.g., _ v2 v1 v0 p | e.g., _ p+3 | [] | [p: v0, p+1, v1, …] | Writes op stack's n top-most values vi to RAM at the address p+i , popping the vi . Increments RAM pointer (st0 ) by n . 1 ⩽ n ⩽ 5 |
For the benefit of clarity, the effect of every possible argument is given below.
instruction | old op stack | new op stack | old RAM | new RAM |
---|---|---|---|---|
read_mem 1 | _ p | _ a p-1 | [p: a] | [p: a] |
read_mem 2 | _ p+1 | _ b a p-1 | [p: a, p+1: b] | [p: a, p+1: b] |
read_mem 3 | _ p+2 | _ c b a p-1 | [p: a, p+1: b, p+2: c] | [p: a, p+1: b, p+2: c] |
read_mem 4 | _ p+3 | _ d c b a p-1 | [p: a, p+1: b, p+2: c, p+3: d] | [p: a, p+1: b, p+2: c, p+3: d] |
read_mem 5 | _ p+4 | _ e d c b a p-1 | [p: a, p+1: b, p+2: c, p+3: d, p+4: e] | [p: a, p+1: b, p+2: c, p+3: d, p+4: e] |
write_mem 1 | _ a p | _ p+1 | [] | [p: a] |
write_mem 2 | _ b a p | _ p+2 | [] | [p: a, p+1: b] |
write_mem 3 | _ c b a p | _ p+3 | [] | [p: a, p+1: b, p+2: c] |
write_mem 4 | _ d c b a p | _ p+4 | [] | [p: a, p+1: b, p+2: c, p+3: d] |
write_mem 5 | _ e d c b a p | _ p+5 | [] | [p: a, p+1: b, p+2: c, p+3: d, p+4: e] |
Hashing
Instruction | Opcode | old op stack | new op stack | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|
hash | 18 | _ jihgfedcba | _ yxwvu | Hashes the stack's 10 top-most elements and puts their digest onto the stack, shrinking the stack by 5. |
divine_sibling | 32 | _ i edcba | e.g., _ (i div 2) edcba zyxwv | Helps traversing a Merkle tree during authentication path verification. See extended description below. |
assert_vector | 26 | _ edcba edcba | _ edcba | Assert equality of st(i) to st(i+5) for 0 <= i < 4 . Crashes the VM if any pair is unequal. Pops the 5 top-most elements. |
sponge_init | 40 | _ | _ | Initializes (resets) the Sponge's state. Must be the first Sponge instruction executed. |
sponge_absorb | 34 | _ _jihgfedcba | _ | Absorbs the stack's ten top-most elements into the Sponge state. |
sponge_squeeze | 48 | _ | _ zyxwvutsrq | Squeezes the Sponge and pushes the 10 squeezed elements onto the stack. |
The instruction hash
works as follows.
The stack's 10 top-most elements (jihgfedcba
) are popped from the stack, reversed, and concatenated with six zeros, resulting in abcdefghij000000
.
The Tip5 permutation is applied to abcdefghij000000
, resulting in αβγδεζηθικuvwxyz
.
The first five elements of this result, i.e., αβγδε
, are reversed and pushed to the stack.
For example, the old stack was _ jihgfedcba
and the new stack is _ εδγβα
.
The instruction divine_sibling
works as follows.
The 6th element of the stack i
is taken as the node index for a Merkle tree that is claimed to include data whose digest is the content of stack registers st4
through st0
, i.e., edcba
.
The sibling digest of edcba
is zyxwv
and is read from the input interface of secret data.
The least-significant bit of i
indicates whether edcba
is the digest of a left leaf or a right leaf of the Merkle tree's base level.
Depending on this least significant bit of i
, divine_sibling
either
- (
i
= 0 mod 2, i.e., current node is left sibling) letsedcba
remain in registersst0
throughst4
and putszyxwv
into registersst5
throughst9
, or - (
i
= 1 mod 2, i.e., current node is right sibling) movesedcba
into registersst5
throughst9
and putszyxwv
into registersst0
throughst4
.
In either case, 6th register i
is shifted by 1 bit to the right, i.e., the least-significant bit is dropped, and moved into the 11th register.
In conjunction with instruction hash
and assert_vector
, the instruction divine_sibling
allows to efficiently verify a Merkle authentication path.
The instructions sponge_init
, sponge_absorb
, and sponge_squeeze
are the interface for using the Tip5 permutation in a Sponge construction.
The capacity is never accessible to the program that's being executed by Triton VM.
At any given time, at most one Sponge state exists.
Only instruction sponge_init
resets the state of the Sponge, and only the three Sponge instructions influence the Sponge's state.
Notably, executing instruction hash
does not modify the Sponge's state.
When using the Sponge instructions, it is the programmer's responsibility to take care of proper input padding:
Triton VM cannot know the number of elements that will be absorbed.
Base Field Arithmetic on Stack
Instruction | Opcode | old op stack | new op stack | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|
add | 42 | _ b a | _ c | Computes the sum (c ) of the top two elements of the stack (b and a ) over the field. |
mul | 50 | _ b a | _ c | Computes the product (c ) of the top two elements of the stack (b and a ) over the field. |
invert | 56 | _ a | _ b | Computes the multiplicative inverse (over the field) of the top of the stack. Crashes the VM if the top of the stack is 0. |
eq | 58 | _ b a | _ (a == b) | Tests the top two stack elements for equality. |
Bitwise Arithmetic on Stack
Instruction | Opcode | old op stack | new op stack | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|
split | 4 | _ a | _ hi lo | Decomposes the top of the stack into the lower 32 bits and the upper 32 bits. |
lt | 6 | _ b a | _ a<b | “Less than” of the stack's two top-most elements. Crashes the VM if a or b is not u32. |
and | 14 | _ b a | _ a&b | Bitwise and of the stack's two top-most elements. Crashes the VM if a or b is not u32. |
xor | 22 | _ b a | _ a^b | Bitwise exclusive or of the stack's two top-most elements. Crashes the VM if a or b is not u32. |
log_2_floor | 12 | _ a | _ ⌊log₂(a)⌋ | The number of bits in a minus 1, i.e., . Crashes the VM if a is 0 or not u32. |
pow | 30 | _ e b | _ b**e | The top of the stack to the power of the stack's runner up. Crashes the VM if exponent e is not u32. |
div_mod | 20 | _ d n | _ q r | Division with remainder of numerator n by denominator d . Guarantees the properties n == q·d + r and r < d . Crashes the VM if n or d is not u32 or if d is 0. |
pop_count | 28 | _ a | _ w | Computes the hamming weight or “population count” of a . Crashes the VM if a is not u32. |
Extension Field Arithmetic on Stack
Instruction | Opcode | old op stack | new op stack | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|
xxadd | 66 | _ z y x b c a | _ w v u | Adds the two extension field elements encoded by field elements z y x and b c a . |
xxmul | 74 | _ z y x b c a | _ w v u | Multiplies the two extension field elements encoded by field elements z y x and b c a . |
xinvert | 64 | _ z y x | _ w v u | Inverts the extension field element encoded by field elements z y x in-place. Crashes the VM if the extension field element is 0. |
xbmul | 82 | _ z y x a | _ w v u | Scalar multiplication of the extension field element encoded by field elements z y x with field element a . Overwrites z y x with the result. |
Input/Output
Instruction | Opcode | old op stack | new op stack | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|
read_io + n | 49 | e.g., _ | e.g., _ c b a | Reads n B-Field elements from standard input and pushes them to the stack. 1 ⩽ n ⩽ 5 |
write_io + n | 19 | e.g., _ c b a | e.g., _ | Pops n elements from the stack and writes them to standard output. 1 ⩽ n ⩽ 5 |