Selective access to multiple registers having a common name

摘要

Among the embodiments of the present invention is a processor (22) having a number of registers in a register bank (50). The registers include a general purpose register (52a) and a stack pointer register (52b) having a common register name. Processor (22) includes logic responsive to programming to perform a program instruction that references the common register name. This instruction is performed with general purpose register (52a) under a first condition and with stack pointer register (52b) under a second condition. Accordingly, multiple registers identified by the same name can be selectively accessed based on the establishment of certain conditions.