It is a fifth part of Say hello to x86_64 Assembly and here we will look at macros. It will not be blog post about x86_64, mainly it will be about nasm assembler and it's preprocessor. If you're interesting in it read next.
NASM supports two form of macro:
Nasm macro behaves and looks very similar as in C. For example, we can create following single-line macro:
and than use it in code:
Multiline macro starts with %macro nasm directive and end with %endmacro. It general form is following:
For example:
And we can use it:
For example let's look at PRINT macro:
Let's try to go through it macro and understand how it works: At first line we defined PRINT macro with one parameter. Than we push all general registers (with pusha instruction) and flag register with (with pushf instruction). After this we jump to %%astr label. Pay attention that all labels which defined in macro must start with %%. Now we move to __syscall_write macro with 2 parameter. Let's look on __syscall_write implementation. You can remember that we use write system call in all previous posts for printing string to stdout. It looks like this:
In our __syscall_write macro we define first two instruction for putting 1 to rax (write system call number) and rdi (stdout file descriptor). Than we put %%str to rsi register (pointer to string), where %%str is local label to which is get first parameter of PRINT macro (pay attention that macro parameter access by $parameter_number) and end with 0 (every string must end with zero). And %%strlen which calculates string length. After this we call system call with syscall instruction and that's all.
Now we can use it:
NASM supports following standard macros:
And now we can make instance of our structure:
It was a fifth part of series 'say hello to x64 assembly', if you will have a questions/suggestions write me a comment or ping me at twitter for discussing. In next part we will talk about difference between Intel syntax and AT&T and look at gas assembly. If you're interesting in some additional themes about assembly and x86_64 programming write me a comment and I will try to write blog post about it in near time.
All another parts you can find - here.
All source code you can find as every time - here.
English is not my first language, so you'll find mistakes in blog post please write me in comments or drop me email .
Macros
NASM supports two form of macro:
- single-line
- multiline
Nasm macro behaves and looks very similar as in C. For example, we can create following single-line macro:
and than use it in code:
Multiline macro starts with %macro nasm directive and end with %endmacro. It general form is following:
For example:
And we can use it:
For example let's look at PRINT macro:
Let's try to go through it macro and understand how it works: At first line we defined PRINT macro with one parameter. Than we push all general registers (with pusha instruction) and flag register with (with pushf instruction). After this we jump to %%astr label. Pay attention that all labels which defined in macro must start with %%. Now we move to __syscall_write macro with 2 parameter. Let's look on __syscall_write implementation. You can remember that we use write system call in all previous posts for printing string to stdout. It looks like this:
In our __syscall_write macro we define first two instruction for putting 1 to rax (write system call number) and rdi (stdout file descriptor). Than we put %%str to rsi register (pointer to string), where %%str is local label to which is get first parameter of PRINT macro (pay attention that macro parameter access by $parameter_number) and end with 0 (every string must end with zero). And %%strlen which calculates string length. After this we call system call with syscall instruction and that's all.
Now we can use it:
Useful standard macros
NASM supports following standard macros:
STRUC
We can use STRUC and ENDSTRUC for data structure defintion. For example:And now we can make instance of our structure:
%include
We can include other assembly files and jump to there labels or call functions with %include directive.Conclusion
It was a fifth part of series 'say hello to x64 assembly', if you will have a questions/suggestions write me a comment or ping me at twitter for discussing. In next part we will talk about difference between Intel syntax and AT&T and look at gas assembly. If you're interesting in some additional themes about assembly and x86_64 programming write me a comment and I will try to write blog post about it in near time.
All another parts you can find - here.
All source code you can find as every time - here.
English is not my first language, so you'll find mistakes in blog post please write me in comments or drop me email .
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