What is the meaning of XOR in x86 assembly?

Question

I\'m getting into assembly and I keep running into xor, for example:

xor     ax, ax

Does it just clear the register\'s value?

Answer 1

xor register, register is commonly used to 'zero' a register, because all bits are compared with each other:

0-bits stay zero. 1-bits become zero, because 1 XOR 1 is also 0.