6/15/24, 4:01 PM Assembly - Procedures
Assembly - Procedures
Procedures or subroutines are very important in assembly language, as the assembly
language programs tend to be large in size. Procedures are identified by a name.
Following this name, the body of the procedure is described which performs a well-
defined job. End of the procedure is indicated by a return statement.
Syntax
Following is the syntax to define a procedure −
proc_name:
procedure body
...
ret
The procedure is called from another function by using the CALL instruction. The
CALL instruction should have the name of the called procedure as an argument as
shown below −
CALL proc_name
The called procedure returns the control to the calling procedure by using the RET
instruction.
Example
Let us write a very simple procedure named sum that adds the variables stored in
the ECX and EDX register and returns the sum in the EAX register −
section .text Live Demo
global _start ;must be declared for using gcc
_start: ;tell linker entry point
mov ecx,'4'
sub ecx, '0'
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6/15/24, 4:01 PM Assembly - Procedures
mov edx, '5'
sub edx, '0'
call sum ;call sum procedure
mov [res], eax
mov ecx, msg
mov edx, len
mov ebx,1 ;file descriptor (stdout)
mov eax,4 ;system call number (sys_write)
int 0x80 ;call kernel
mov ecx, res
mov edx, 1
mov ebx, 1 ;file descriptor (stdout)
mov eax, 4 ;system call number (sys_write)
int 0x80 ;call kernel
mov eax,1 ;system call number (sys_exit)
int 0x80 ;call kernel
sum:
mov eax, ecx
add eax, edx
add eax, '0'
ret
section .data
msg db "The sum is:", 0xA,0xD
len equ $- msg
segment .bss
res resb 1
When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces the following result −
The sum is:
9
Stacks Data Structure
A stack is an array-like data structure in the memory in which data can be stored
and removed from a location called the 'top' of the stack. The data that needs to be
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6/15/24, 4:01 PM Assembly - Procedures
stored is 'pushed' into the stack and data to be retrieved is 'popped' out from the
stack. Stack is a LIFO data structure, i.e., the data stored first is retrieved last.
Assembly language provides two instructions for stack operations: PUSH and POP.
These instructions have syntaxes like −
PUSH operand
POP address/register
The memory space reserved in the stack segment is used for implementing stack.
The registers SS and ESP (or SP) are used for implementing the stack. The top of
the stack, which points to the last data item inserted into the stack is pointed to by
the SS:ESP register, where the SS register points to the beginning of the stack
segment and the SP (or ESP) gives the offset into the stack segment.
The stack implementation has the following characteristics −
Only words or doublewords could be saved into the stack, not a byte.
The stack grows in the reverse direction, i.e., toward the lower memory
address
The top of the stack points to the last item inserted in the stack; it points to
the lower byte of the last word inserted.
As we discussed about storing the values of the registers in the stack before using
them for some use; it can be done in following way −
; Save the AX and BX registers in the stack
PUSH AX
PUSH BX
; Use the registers for other purpose
MOV AX, VALUE1
MOV BX, VALUE2
...
MOV VALUE1, AX
MOV VALUE2, BX
; Restore the original values
POP BX
POP AX
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Example
The following program displays the entire ASCII character set. The main program
calls a procedure named display, which displays the ASCII character set.
section .text
global _start ;must be declared for using gcc
_start: ;tell linker entry point
call display
mov eax,1 ;system call number (sys_exit)
int 0x80 ;call kernel
display:
mov ecx, 256
next:
push ecx
mov eax, 4
mov ebx, 1
mov ecx, achar
mov edx, 1
int 80h
pop ecx
mov dx, [achar]
cmp byte [achar], 0dh
inc byte [achar]
loop next
ret
section .data
achar db '0'
When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces the following result −
0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvw
...
...
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