Using LEA on values that aren't addresses / pointers?

Question

I was trying to understand how Address Computation Instruction works, especially with leaq command. Then I get confused when I see examples using leaq

Answer 1

LEA is for calculating the address. It doesn't dereference the memory address

It should be much more readable in Intel syntax

m12(long):
  lea rax, [rdi+rdi*2]
  sal rax, 2
  ret

So the first line is equivalent to rax = rdi*3 Then the left shift is to multiply rax by 4, which results in rdi*3*4 = rdi*12