The Flag registers, F and F', supply information to the user about the status of the Z80 CPU at any particular time. Each of these two Flag registers contains 6 bits of status information that are set or cleared by CPU operations; bits 3 and 5 are not used.
Four of these bits (C, P/V, Z, and S) can be tested for use with conditional JUMP, CALL, or RETURN instructions.
The H and N flags cannot be tested; these two flags are used for BCD arithmetic.
| 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S | Z | H | P/V | N | C |
C Carry
The Carry Flag (C) is set or cleared depending on the operation being performed.
For ADD instructions that generate a Carry, and for SUB instructions that generate a Borrow, the Carry Flag is set.
The Carry Flag is reset by an ADD instruction that does not generate a Carry, and by a SUB instruction that does not generate a Borrow.
This saved Carry facilitates software routines for extended precision arithmetic.
Additionally, the DAA instruction sets the Carry Flag if the conditions for making the decimal adjustment are met.
For the RLA, RRA, RLS, and RRS instructions, the Carry bit is used as a link between the least-significant byte (LSB) and the most-significant byte (MSB) for any register or memory location. During the RLCA, RLC, and SLA instructions, the Carry flag contains the final value shifted out of bit 7 of any register or memory location. During the RRCA, RRC, SRA, and SRL instructions, the Carry flag contains the final value shifted out of bit 0 of any register or memory location.
For the logical instructions AND, OR, and XOR, the Carry flag is reset.
The Carry flag can also be set by the Set Carry Flag (SCF) instruction and complemented by the Compliment Carry Flag (CCF) instruction.
Z Zero
The Zero Flag (Z) is set (1) or cleared (0) if the result generated by the execution of certain instructions is 0.
For 8-bit arithmetic and logical operations, the Z flag is set to a 1 if the resulting byte in the Accumulator is 0. If the byte is not 0, the Z flag is reset to 0.
For Compare (search) instructions, the Z flag is set to 1 if the value in the Accumulator is equal to the value in the memory location indicated by the value of the register pair HL.
When testing a bit in a register or memory location, the Z flag contains the complemented state of the indicated bit.
When inputting or outputting a byte between a memory location and an INI, IND, OUTI, or OUTD I/O device, if the result of decrementing Register B is 0, then the Z flag is 1; otherwise, the Z flag is 0. Additionally, for byte inputs from I/O devices using IN r, (C), the Z flag is set to indicate a 0-byte input.
P/V Parity Overflow
The Parity/Overflow (P/V) Flag is set to a specific state depending on the operation being performed.
Overflow
For arithmetic operations, this flag indicates an overflow condition when the result in the Accumulator is greater than the maximum possible number (+127) or is less than the minimum possible number (–128). This overflow condition is determined by examining the sign bits of the operands.
For addition, operands with different signs never cause overflow. When adding operands with similar signs and the result contains a different sign, the Overflow Flag is set.
For subtraction, overflow can occur for operands of unalike signs. Operands of alike signs never cause overflow.
Another method for identifying an overflow is to observe the Carry to and out of the sign bit. If there is a Carry in and no Carry out, or if there is no Carry in and a Carry out, then an Overflow has occurred.
Parity
This flag is also used with logical operations and rotate instructions to indicate the resulting parity is even. The number of 1 bits in a byte are counted. If the total is Odd, ODD parity is flagged (i.e., P = 0). If the total is even, even parity is flagged (i.e., P = 1).
When inputting a byte from an I/O device with an IN r, (C) instruction, the P/V Flag is adjusted to indicate data parity.
Alternate usage
During the CPI, CPIR, CPD, and CPDR search instructions and the LDI, LDIR, LDD, and LDDR block transfer instructions, the P/V Flag monitors the state of the Byte Count (BC) Register. When decrementing, if the byte counter decrements to 0, the flag is cleared to 0; otherwise the flag is set to 1.
During the LD A, I and LD A, R instructions, the P/V Flag is set with the value of the interrupt enable flip-flop (IFF2) for storage or testing.
S Sign
The Sign Flag (S) stores the state of the most-significant bit of the Accumulator (bit 7). When the Z80 CPU performs arithmetic operations on signed numbers, the binary twos-complement notation is used to represent and process numeric information.
A positive number is identified by a 0 in Bit 7. A negative number is identified by a 1.
The binary equivalent of the magnitude of a positive number is stored in bits 0 to 6 for a total range of from 0 to 127.
A negative number is represented by the twos complement of the equivalent positive number. The total range for negative numbers is from –1 to –128.
When inputting a byte from an I/O device to a register using an IN r, (C) instruction, the S Flag indicates either positive (S = 0) or negative (S = 1) data.
N Add/Subtract
The Add/Subtract Flag (N) is used by the Decimal Adjust Accumulator instruction (DAA) to distinguish between the ADD and SUB instructions.
For ADD instructions, N is cleared to 0. For SUB instructions, N is set to 1.
H Half Carry
The Half Carry Flag (H) is set (1) or cleared (0) depending on the Carry and Borrow status between bits 3 and 4 of an 8-bit arithmetic operation. This flag is used by the Decimal Adjust Accumulator (DAA) instruction to correct the result of a packed BCD add or subtract operation.
For ADD instructions, H is set if a carry occurs from bit 3 to bit 4. For SUB instructions, H is set if a borrow from bit 4 occurs.