LDP/LDP/howto/docbook/Assembly-HOWTO.sgml

<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V3.1//EN" [

<!ENTITY version "0.6g">

<!ENTITY s-intro "<link linkend=s-intro>Introduction</link>">
<!ENTITY s-doyou "<link linkend=s-doyou>Do you need assembly?</link>">
<!ENTITY s-assem "<link linkend=s-assem>Assemblers</link>">
<!ENTITY s-meta "<link linkend=s-meta>Metaprogramming</link>">
<!ENTITY s-call "<link linkend=s-call>Calling conventions</link>">
<!ENTITY s-quick "<link linkend=s-quick>Quick Start</link>">
<!ENTITY s-res "<link linkend=s-res>Resources</link>">
<!ENTITY s-faq "<link linkend=s-faq>FAQ</link>">
<!ENTITY s-list "<link linkend=s-res-list>linux-assembly mailing list</link>">

]>

<!-- $Id$ -->

<book>
<?html-filename Assembly-HOWTO.html>

<bookinfo>
<title>Linux Assembly HOWTO</title>

<authorgroup>
<author>
    <firstname>Konstantin</firstname>
    <surname>Boldyshev</surname>
    <affiliation>
	<orgname>
	    <ulink url="http://linuxassembly.org">
	    Linux Assembly<anchor id="konst"></ulink>
	</orgname>
	<address>
	    <email>konst@linuxassembly.org</email>
	</address>
    </affiliation>
</author>
<author>
    <firstname>Francois-Rene</firstname>
    <surname>Rideau</surname>
    <affiliation>
	<orgname>
	    <ulink url="http://tunes.org">
	    Tunes project<anchor id="fare"></ulink>
	</orgname>
	<address>
	    <email>fare@tunes.org</email>
	</address>
    </affiliation>
</author>
</authorgroup>

<copyright>
<year>1999-2006</year><holder>Konstantin Boldyshev</holder>
</copyright>
<copyright>
<year>1996-1999</year><holder>Francois-Rene Rideau</holder>
</copyright>

<legalnotice><para>
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1;
with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover texts.
</para></legalnotice>

<releaseinfo>Version &version;</releaseinfo>
<edition>&version;</edition>
<pubdate role="cvs">$Date$</pubdate>

<abstract>
<para>
This is the Linux Assembly HOWTO, version &version;.
This document describes how to program in assembly language
using <emphasis>free</emphasis> programming tools,
focusing on development for or from the Linux Operating System,
mostly on IA-32 (i386) platform.
Included material may or may not be applicable
to other hardware and/or software platforms.
</para>
</abstract>

<keywordset>
<keyword>assembly</keyword>
<keyword>assembler</keyword>
<keyword>asm</keyword>
<keyword>inline</keyword>
<keyword>32-bit</keyword>
<keyword>IA-32</keyword>
<keyword>i386</keyword>
<keyword>x86</keyword>
<keyword>nasm</keyword>
<keyword>gas</keyword>
<keyword>as</keyword>
<keyword>as86</keyword>
<keyword>yasm</keyword>
<keyword>fasm</keyword>
<keyword>shasm</keyword>
<keyword>osimpa</keyword>
<keyword>OS</keyword>
<keyword>Linux</keyword>
<keyword>Unix</keyword>
<keyword>kernel</keyword>
<keyword>system</keyword>
<keyword>libc</keyword>
<keyword>glibc</keyword>
<keyword>system call</keyword>
<keyword>interrupt</keyword>
<keyword>small</keyword>
<keyword>fast</keyword>
<keyword>embedded</keyword>
<keyword>hardware</keyword>
<keyword>port</keyword>
<keyword>macroprocessor</keyword>
<keyword>metaprogramming</keyword>
<keyword>preprocessor</keyword>
</keywordset>

</bookinfo>


<!--
	start
-->


<chapter id="s-intro" xreflabel="Introduction">
<?html-filename introduction.html>
<title>Introduction</title>

<note><para>
You can skip this chapter if you are familiar with HOWTOs,
or just hate to read all this assembly-unrelated crap.
</para></note>

<simplesect><title>Legal Blurb</title>

<para>
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU
<ulink url="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html">
Free Documentation License</ulink> Version 1.1;
with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover texts.
A copy of the license is included in the <xref linkend="a-gfdl"> appendix.
</para>

<para>
The most recent official version of this document is available from the
<ulink url="http://linuxassembly.org/howto.html">Linux Assembly</ulink> and
<ulink url="http://tldp.org/docs.html">LDP</ulink> sites.
If you are reading a few-months-old copy,
consider checking the above URLs for a new version.
</para>

</simplesect>

<simplesect><title>Foreword</title>

<para>
This document aims answering questions of those
who program or want to program 32-bit x86 assembly using
<emphasis>free software</emphasis>,
particularly under the Linux operating system.
At many places Universal Resource Locators (<acronym>URL</acronym>) are given
for some software or documentation repository.
This document also points to other documents about
non-free, non-x86, or non-32-bit assemblers,
although this is not its primary goal.
Also note that there are FAQs and docs about programming
on your favorite platform (whatever it is), which you should consult
for platform-specific issues, not related directly to assembly programming.
</para>

<para>
Because the main interest of assembly programming is to build
the guts of operating systems, interpreters, compilers, and games,
where C compiler fails to provide the needed expressiveness
(performance is more and more seldom as issue),
we are focusing on development of such kind of software.
</para>

<para>
If you don't know what 
<ulink url="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/">
<emphasis>free software</emphasis></ulink> is,
please do read <emphasis>carefully</emphasis>
the GNU <ulink url="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">
General Public License</ulink>
(<acronym>GPL</acronym> or <acronym>copyleft</acronym>),
which is used in a lot of free software,
and is the model for most of their licenses.
It generally comes in a file named <filename>COPYING</filename>
(or <filename>COPYING.LIB</filename>).
Literature from the
<ulink url="http://www.fsf.org">Free Software Foundation</ulink>
(<acronym>FSF</acronym>) might help you too.
Particularly, the interesting feature of free software
is that it comes with source code which you can consult and correct,
or sometimes even borrow from.
Read your particular license carefully and do comply to it.
</para>

</simplesect>

<simplesect><title>Contributions</title>

<para>
This is an interactively evolving document: you are especially invited
to ask questions,
to answer questions,
to correct given answers,
to give pointers to new software,
to point the current maintainer to bugs or deficiencies in the pages.
In one word, contribute!
</para>

<para>
To contribute, please contact the <link linkend="konst">maintainer</link>.
</para>

<note><para>
At the time of writing, it is
<link linkend="konst">Konstantin Boldyshev</link>
and no more
<link linkend="fare">Francois-Rene Rideau</link> (since version 0.5).
I (<link linkend="fare">Fare</link>) had been looking for some time
for a serious hacker to replace me as maintainer of this document,
and am pleased to announce
<link linkend="konst">Konstantin</link> as my worthy successor.
</para></note>

</simplesect>

<simplesect><title>Translations</title>

<para>
Korean translation of this HOWTO is avalilable at
<ulink url="http://kldp.org/HOWTO/html/Assembly-HOWTO/">
http://kldp.org/HOWTO/html/Assembly-HOWTO/</ulink>.
Turkish translation of this HOWTO is available at
<ulink url="http://belgeler.org/howto/assembly-howto.html">
http://belgeler.org/howto/assembly-howto.html</ulink>.
Incomplete Russian translation is available at 
<ulink url="http://volgograd.lug.ru/wiki/GrableVodstvo/articles/AssembleInLinux/">
http://volgograd.lug.ru/wiki/GrableVodstvo/articles/AssembleInLinux/</ulink>.
Also, there was a French translation of the early HOWTO versions,
but I can't find it now.
</para>

</simplesect>

</chapter>

<chapter id="s-doyou" xreflabel="Do you need assembly?">
<?html-filename doyouneed.html>
<title>Do you need assembly?</title>

<para>
Well, I wouldn't want to interfere with what you're doing,
but here is some advice from the hard-earned experience.
</para>

<section><title>Pros and Cons</title>

<section><title>The advantages of Assembly</title>

<para>
Assembly can express very low-level things:

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
you can access machine-dependent registers and I/O
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
you can control the exact code behavior
in critical sections that might otherwise involve deadlock
between multiple software threads or hardware devices
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
you can break the conventions of your usual compiler,
which might allow some optimizations
(like temporarily breaking rules about memory allocation,
threading, calling conventions, etc)
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
you can build interfaces between code fragments
using incompatible conventions
(e.g. produced by different compilers,
or separated by a low-level interface)
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
you can get access to unusual programming modes of your processor
(e.g. 16 bit mode to interface startup, firmware, or legacy code
on Intel PCs)
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
you can produce reasonably fast code for tight loops
to cope with a bad non-optimizing compiler
(but then, there are free optimizing compilers available!)
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
you can produce hand-optimized code
perfectly tuned for your particular hardware setup,
though not to someone else's
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
you can write some code for your new language's optimizing compiler
(that is something what very few ones will ever do, and even they not often)
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
i.e. you can be in complete control of your code
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</para>

</section>

<section><title>The disadvantages of Assembly</title>

<para>
Assembly is a very low-level language
(the lowest above hand-coding the binary instruction patterns).
This means

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
it is long and tedious to write initially
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
it is quite bug-prone
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
your bugs can be very difficult to chase
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
your code can be fairly difficult to understand and modify,
i.e. to maintain
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
the result is non-portable to other architectures,
existing or upcoming
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
your code will be optimized only for a certain implementation
of a same architecture:
for instance, among Intel-compatible platforms
each CPU design and its variations
(relative latency, through-output, and capacity,
of processing units, caches, RAM, bus, disks,
presence of FPU, MMX, 3DNOW, SIMD extensions, etc)
implies potentially completely different optimization techniques.
CPU designs already include:
Intel 386, 486, Pentium, PPro, PII, PIII, PIV;
Cyrix 5x86, 6x86, M2; AMD K5, K6 (K6-2, K6-III), K7 (Athlon, Duron).
New designs keep popping up, so don't expect either this listing
and your code to be up-to-date.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
you spend more time on a few details
and can't focus on small and large algorithmic design,
that are known to bring the largest part of the speed up
(e.g. you might spend some time building very fast
list/array manipulation primitives in assembly;
only a hash table would have sped up your program much more;
or, in another context, a binary tree;
or some high-level structure distributed over a cluster of CPUs)
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
a small change in algorithmic design might completely
invalidate all your existing assembly code.
So that either you're ready (and able) to rewrite it all,
or you're tied to a particular algorithmic design
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
On code that ain't too far from what's in standard benchmarks,
commercial optimizing compilers outperform hand-coded assembly
(well, that's less true on the x86 architecture than on RISC architectures,
and perhaps less true for widely available/free compilers;
anyway, for typical C code, GCC is fairly good);
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
And in any case, as moderator John Levine says on
<ulink url="news:comp.compilers">comp.compilers</ulink>,
</para>
<literallayout>
"compilers make it a lot easier to use complex	data structures,
and compilers don't get bored halfway through
and generate reliably pretty good code."
</literallayout>
<para>
They will also <emphasis>correctly</emphasis> propagate code transformations
throughout the whole (huge) program
when optimizing code between procedures and module boundaries.
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</para>

</section>

<section><title>Assessment</title>

<para>
All in all, you might find that though using assembly is sometimes needed,
and might even be useful in a few cases where it is not, you'll want to:

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
minimize use of assembly code
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
encapsulate this code in well-defined interfaces
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
have your assembly code automatically generated
from patterns expressed in a higher-level language
than assembly (e.g. GCC inline assembly macros)
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
have automatic tools translate these programs
into assembly code
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
have this code be optimized if possible
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
All of the above,
i.e. write (an extension to) an optimizing compiler back-end.
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</para>

<para>
Even when assembly is needed (e.g. OS development),
you'll find that not so much of it is required,
and that the above principles retain.
</para>

<para>
See the Linux kernel sources concerning this:
as little assembly as needed,
resulting in a fast, reliable, portable, maintainable OS.
Even a successful game like DOOM was almost massively written in C,
with a tiny part only being written in assembly for speed up.
</para>

</section>

</section>

<section>
<?html-filename howtonot.html>
<title>How to NOT use Assembly</title>

<section><title>General procedure to achieve efficient code</title>

<para>
As Charles Fiterman says on
<ulink url="news:comp.compilers">comp.compilers</ulink>
about human vs computer-generated assembly code:
</para>

<blockquote>
<literallayout>
The human should always win and here is why.

First the human writes the whole thing in a high level language.
Second he profiles it to find the hot spots where it spends its time.
Third he has the compiler produce assembly for those small sections of code.
Fourth he hand tunes them looking for tiny improvements over the machine generated code.

The human wins because he can use the machine.
</literallayout></blockquote>

</section>

<section><title>Languages with optimizing compilers</title>

<para>
Languages like ObjectiveCAML, SML, CommonLISP, Scheme, ADA, Pascal, C, C++,
among others, all have free optimizing compilers
that will optimize the bulk of your programs,
and often do better than hand-coded assembly even for tight loops,
while allowing you to focus on higher-level details,
and without forbidding you to grab
a few percent of extra performance in the above-mentioned way,
once you've reached a stable design.
Of course, there are also commercial optimizing compilers
for most of these languages, too!
</para>

<para>
Some languages have compilers that produce C code,
which can be further optimized by a C compiler:
LISP, Scheme, Perl, and many other.
Speed is fairly good.
</para>

</section>

<section><title>General procedure to speed your code up</title>

<para>
As for speeding code up,
you should do it only for parts of a program
that a profiling tool has consistently identified
as being a performance bottleneck.
</para>

<para>
Hence, if you identify some code portion as being too slow, you should

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
first try to use a better algorithm;
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
then try to compile it rather than interpret it;
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
then try to enable and tweak optimization from your compiler;
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
then give the compiler hints about how to optimize
(typing information in LISP; register usage with GCC;
lots of options in most compilers, etc).
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
then possibly fallback to assembly programming
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</para>

<para>
Finally, before you end up writing assembly,
you should inspect generated code,
to check that the problem really is with bad code generation,
as this might really not be the case:
compiler-generated code might be better than what you'd have written,
particularly on modern multi-pipelined architectures!
Slow parts of a program might be intrinsically so.
The biggest problems on modern architectures with fast processors
are due to delays from memory access, cache-misses, TLB-misses,
and page-faults;
register optimization becomes useless,
and you'll more profitably re-think data structures and threading
to achieve better locality in memory access.
Perhaps a completely different approach to the problem might help, then.
</para>

</section>

<section><title>Inspecting compiler-generated code</title>

<para>
There are many reasons to inspect compiler-generated assembly code.
Here is what you'll do with such code:

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
check whether generated code
can be obviously enhanced with hand-coded assembly
(or by tweaking compiler switches)
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
when that's the case,
start from generated code and modify it
instead of starting from scratch
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
more generally, use generated code as stubs to modify,
which at least gets right the way
your assembly routines interface to the external world
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
track down bugs in your compiler (hopefully the rarer)
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</para>

<para>
The standard way to have assembly code be generated
is to invoke your compiler with the <option>-S</option> flag.
This works with most Unix compilers,
including the GNU C Compiler (GCC), but YMMV.
As for GCC, it will produce more understandable assembly code with
the <option>-fverbose-asm</option> command-line option.
Of course, if you want to get good assembly code,
don't forget your usual optimization options and hints!
</para>

</section>

</section>

<section>
<?html-filename landa.html>
<title>Linux and assembly</title>

<para>
As you probably noticed, in general case
you don't need to use assembly language in Linux programming.
Unlike DOS, you do not have to write Linux drivers in assembly
(well, actually you can do it if you really want).
And with modern optimizing compilers,
if you care of speed optimization for different CPU's,
it's much simpler to write in C.
However, if you're reading this,
you might have some reason to use assembly instead of C/C++.
</para>

<para>
You may <emphasis>need</emphasis> to use assembly, or you may <emphasis>want</emphasis> to use assembly.
In short, main practical (<emphasis>need</emphasis>) reasons
of diving into the assembly realm are <emphasis>small code</emphasis>
and <emphasis><application>libc</application> independence</emphasis>.
Impractical (<emphasis>want</emphasis>), and the most often reason is
being just an old crazy hacker,
who has twenty years old habit of doing everything in assembly language.
</para>

<para>
However, if you're porting Linux to some embedded hardware
you can be quite short at the size of whole system:
you need to fit kernel, <application>libc</application>
and all that stuff of <application>(file|find|text|sh|etc.) utils</application>
into several hundreds of kilobytes,
and every kilobyte costs much.
So, one of the possible ways is to rewrite some
(or all) parts of system in assembly,
and this will really save you a lot of space.
For instance, a simple <command>httpd</command> written in assembly
can take less than 600 bytes;
you can fit a server consisting of kernel, httpd and ftpd
in 400 KB or less... Think about it.
</para>

</section>

</chapter>

<chapter id="s-assem" xreflabel="Assemblers">
<?html-filename assemblers.html>
<title>Assemblers</title>

<section id="p-gcc">
<?html-filename gcc.html>
<title>GCC Inline Assembly</title>

<para>
The well-known GNU C/C++ Compiler (GCC),
an optimizing 32-bit compiler at the heart of the GNU project,
supports the x86 architecture quite well,
and includes the ability to insert assembly code in C programs,
in such a way that register allocation can be either specified or left to GCC.
GCC works on most available platforms,
notably Linux, *BSD, VSTa, OS/2, *DOS, Win*, etc.
</para>

<section><title>Where to find GCC</title>

<para>
GCC home page is <ulink url="http://gcc.gnu.org">
http://gcc.gnu.org</ulink>.
</para>

<para>
<anchor id="p-djgpp">
DOS port of GCC is called
<ulink url="http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/">DJGPP</ulink>.
</para>

<para>
There are two Win32 GCC ports:
<ulink url="http://www.cygwin.com">cygwin</ulink> and
<ulink url="http://www.mingw.org">mingw</ulink> 
</para>

<para>
There is also an OS/2 port of GCC called EMX;
it works under DOS too,
and includes lots of unix-emulation library routines.
Look around the following site:
<ulink url="ftp://ftp.leo.org/pub/comp/os/os2/leo/gnu/emx+gcc/">
ftp://ftp.leo.org/pub/comp/os/os2/leo/gnu/emx+gcc/
</ulink>.
</para>

</section>

<section><title>Where to find docs for GCC Inline Asm</title>

<para>
The documentation of GCC includes documentation files in TeXinfo format.
You can compile them with TeX and print then result,
or convert them to <filename>.info</filename>, and browse them with emacs,
or convert them to <filename>.html</filename>, or nearly whatever you like;
convert (with the right tools) to whatever you like,
or just read as is. The <filename>.info</filename> files
are generally found on any good installation for GCC.
</para>

<para>
The right section to look for is <literal>C Extensions::Extended Asm::</literal>
</para>

<para>
Section	<literal>Invoking GCC::Submodel Options::i386 Options::</literal> might help too.
Particularly, it gives the i386 specific constraint names for registers:
<literal>abcdSDB</literal> correspond to
<literal>%eax</literal>,
<literal>%ebx</literal>,
<literal>%ecx</literal>,
<literal>%edx</literal>,
<literal>%esi</literal>,
<literal>%edi</literal>
and
<literal>%ebp</literal>
respectively (no letter for <literal>%esp</literal>).
</para>

<para>
The DJGPP Games resource (not only for game hackers) had page
specifically about assembly, but it's down.
Its data have nonetheless been recovered on the
<link linkend="p-djgpp">DJGPP site</link>,
that contains a mine of other useful information:
<ulink url="http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/doc/brennan/">
http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/doc/brennan/</ulink>.
</para>

<para>
GCC depends on GAS for assembling and follows its syntax (see below);
do mind that inline asm needs percent characters to be quoted,
they will be passed to GAS.
See the section about GAS below.
</para>

<para>
Find <emphasis>lots</emphasis> of useful examples in the
<filename>linux/include/asm-i386/</filename>
subdirectory of the sources for the Linux kernel.
</para>

</section>

<section><title>Invoking GCC to build proper inline assembly code</title>

<para>
Because assembly routines from the kernel headers
(and most likely your own headers,
if you try making your assembly programming as clean
as it is in the linux kernel)
are embedded in <function>extern inline</function> functions,
GCC must be invoked with the <option>-O</option> flag
(or <option>-O2</option>, <option>-O3</option>, etc),
for these routines to be available.
If not, your code may compile, but not link properly,
since it will be looking for non-inlined <function>extern</function> functions
in the libraries against which your program is being linked!
Another way is to link against libraries that include fallback
versions of the routines.
</para>

<para>
Inline assembly can be disabled with <option>-fno-asm</option>,
which will have the compiler die when using extended inline asm syntax,
or else generate calls to an external function named <function>asm()</function>
that the linker can't resolve.
To counter such flag, <option>-fasm</option> restores treatment
of the <literal>asm</literal> keyword.
</para>

<para>
More generally, good compile flags for GCC on the x86 platform are
</para>

<para>
<command>gcc -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -W -Wall</command>
</para>

<para>
<option>-O2</option> is the good optimization level in most cases.
Optimizing besides it takes more time, and yields code that is much larger,
but only a bit faster;
such over-optimization might be useful for tight loops only (if any),
which you may be doing in assembly anyway.
In cases when you need really strong compiler optimization for a few files,
do consider using up to <option>-O6</option>.
</para>

<para>
<option>-fomit-frame-pointer</option> allows generated code to skip
the stupid frame pointer maintenance, which makes code smaller and faster,
and frees a register for further optimizations.
It precludes the easy use of debugging tools (<command>gdb</command>),
but when you use these, you just don't care about size and speed anymore anyway.
</para>

<para>
<option>-W -Wall</option> enables all useful warnings
and helps you to catch obvious stupid errors.
</para>

<para>
You can add some CPU-specific <option>-m486</option> or such flag so that
GCC will produce code that is more adapted to your precise CPU.
Note that modern GCC has <option>-mpentium</option> and such flags
(and <ulink url="http://goof.com/pcg/">PGCC</ulink> has even more),
whereas GCC 2.7.x and older versions do not.
A good choice of CPU-specific flags should be in the Linux kernel.
Check the TeXinfo documentation of your current GCC installation for more.
</para>

<para>
<option>-m386</option> will help optimize for size,
hence also for speed on computers whose memory is tight and/or loaded,
since big programs cause swap, which more than counters
any "optimization" intended by the larger code.
In such settings, it might be useful to stop using C,
and use instead a language that favors code factorization,
such as a functional language and/or FORTH,
and use a bytecode- or wordcode- based implementation.
</para>

<para>
Note that you can vary code generation flags from file to file,
so performance-critical files will use maximum optimization,
whereas other files will be optimized for size.
</para>

<para>
To optimize even more, option <option>-mregparm=2</option>
and/or corresponding function attribute might help,
but might pose lots of problems when linking to foreign code,
<emphasis>including <application>libc</application></emphasis>.
There are ways to correctly declare foreign functions
so the right call sequences be generated,
or you might want to recompile the foreign libraries
to use the same register-based calling convention...
</para>

<para>
Note that you can add make these flags the default by editing file
<filename>/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i486-linux/2.7.2.3/specs</filename>
or wherever that is on your system
(better not add <option>-W -Wall</option> there, though).
The exact location of the GCC specs files on system can be found by
<command>gcc -v</command>.
</para>

</section>

<section><title>Macro support</title>

<para>
GCC allows (and requires) you to specify register constraints
in your inline assembly code, so the optimizer always know about it;
thus, inline assembly code is really made of patterns,
not forcibly exact code.
</para>

<para>
Thus, you can put your assembly into CPP macros, and inline C functions,
so anyone can use it in as any C function/macro.
Inline functions resemble macros very much, but are sometimes cleaner to use.
Beware that in all those cases, code will be duplicated,
so only local labels (of <literal>1:</literal> style)
should be defined in that asm code.
However, a macro would allow the name for a non local defined label
to be passed as a parameter
(or else, you should use additional meta-programming methods).
Also, note that propagating inline asm code will spread potential bugs in them;
so watch out doubly for register constraints in such inline asm code.
</para>

<para>
Lastly, the C language itself may be considered as a good abstraction
to assembly programming,
which relieves you from most of the trouble of assembling.
</para>

</section>


</section>

<section id="p-gas" xreflabel="GAS">
<?html-filename gas.html>
<title>GAS</title>

<para>
GAS is the GNU Assembler, that GCC relies upon.
</para>

<section><title>Where to find it</title>

<para>
Find it at the same place where you've found GCC,
in the binutils package.
The latest version of binutils is available from
<ulink url="http://sources.redhat.com/binutils/">
http://sources.redhat.com/binutils/
</ulink>.
</para>

</section>

<section><title>What is this AT&amp;T syntax</title>

<para>
Because GAS was invented to support a 32-bit unix compiler,
it uses standard AT&amp;T syntax,
which resembles a lot the syntax for standard m68k assemblers,
and is standard in the UNIX world.
This syntax is neither worse, nor better than the Intel syntax.
It's just different.
When you get used to it,
you find it much more regular than the Intel syntax,
though a bit boring.
</para>

<para>
Here are the major caveats about GAS syntax:

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
Register names are prefixed with <literal>%</literal>, so that registers
are <literal>%eax</literal>, <literal>%dl</literal> and so on,
instead of just <literal>eax</literal>, <literal>dl</literal>, etc.
This makes it possible to include external C symbols directly
in assembly source, without any risk of confusion, or any need
for ugly underscore prefixes.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
The order of operands is source(s) first, and destination last,
as opposed to the Intel convention of destination first and sources last.
Hence, what in Intel syntax is
<function>mov eax,edx</function>
(move contents of register <literal>edx</literal> into register <literal>eax</literal>)
will be in GAS syntax
<function>mov %edx,%eax</function>.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
The operand size is specified as a suffix to the instruction name.
The suffix is
<literal>b</literal> for (8-bit) byte,
<literal>w</literal> for (16-bit) word, and
<literal>l</literal> for (32-bit) long.
For instance, the correct syntax for the above instruction
would have been <function>movl %edx,%eax</function>.
However, gas does not require strict AT&amp;T syntax,
so the suffix is optional when size can be guessed from register operands,
and else defaults to 32-bit (with a warning).
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
Immediate operands are marked with a <literal>$</literal> prefix,
as in <function>addl $5,%eax</function>
(add immediate long value 5 to register <literal>%eax</literal>).
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
Missing operand prefix indicates that it is memory-contents;
hence <function>movl $foo,%eax</function>
puts the <emphasis>address</emphasis> of variable <literal>foo</literal>
into register <literal>%eax</literal>,
but <function>movl foo,%eax</function>
puts the <emphasis>contents</emphasis> of variable <literal>foo</literal>
into register <literal>%eax</literal>.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
Indexing or indirection is done by enclosing the index register
or indirection memory cell address in parentheses,
as in <function>testb $0x80,17(%ebp)</function>
(test the high bit of the byte value at offset 17
from the cell pointed to by <literal>%ebp</literal>).
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</para>

<para>
<anchor id="p-convert">
Note: There are <link linkend="s-res">few programs</link> which may help you
to convert source code between AT&amp;T and Intel assembler syntaxes;
some of the are capable of performing conversion in both directions.
</para>

<para>
GAS has comprehensive documentation in TeXinfo format,
which comes at least with the source distribution.
Browse extracted <filename>.info</filename> pages with Emacs or whatever.
There used to be a file named gas.doc or as.doc
around the GAS source package, but it was merged into the TeXinfo docs.
Of course, in case of doubt, the ultimate documentation
is the sources themselves!
A section that will particularly interest you is
<literal>Machine Dependencies::i386-Dependent::</literal>
</para>

<para>
Again, the sources for Linux (the OS kernel) come in as excellent examples;
see under <filename>linux/arch/i386/</filename> the following files:
<filename>kernel/*.S</filename>,
<filename>boot/compressed/*.S</filename>,
<filename>math-emu/*.S</filename>.
</para>

<para>
If you are writing kind of a language, a thread package, etc.,
you might as well see how other languages (
<ulink url="http://para.inria.fr/">OCaml</ulink>,
<ulink url="http://www.jwdt.com/~paysan/gforth.html">Gforth</ulink>,
etc.),
or thread packages (QuickThreads, MIT pthreads, LinuxThreads, etc),
or whatever else do it.
</para>

<para>
Finally, just compiling a C program to assembly
might show you the syntax for the kind of instructions you want.
See section <xref linkend="s-doyou"> above.
</para>

</section>

<section><title>Intel syntax</Title>

<para>
Good news are that starting from binutils 2.10 release,
GAS supports Intel syntax too.
It can be triggered with <literal>.intel_syntax</literal> directive.
Unfortunately this mode is not documented (yet?) in the official
binutils manual, so if you want to use it, try to examine
<ulink url="http://www.lxhp.in-berlin.de/lhpas86.html">
http://www.lxhp.in-berlin.de/lhpas86.html</ulink>,
which is an extract from AMD 64bit port of binutils 2.11.
</para>

</section>

<section><title>16-bit mode</title>

<para>
Binutils (2.9.1.0.25+) now fully support 16-bit mode
(registers <emphasis>and</emphasis> addressing) on i386 PCs.
Use <literal>.code16</literal> and <literal>.code32</literal>
to switch between assembly modes.
</para>

<para>
Also, a neat trick used by several people (including the oskit authors)
is to force GCC to produce code for 16-bit real mode,
using an inline assembly statement
<literal>asm(".code16\n")</literal>.
GCC will still emit only 32-bit addressing modes,
but GAS will insert proper 32-bit prefixes for them.
</para>

</section>

<section><title>Macro support</title>
<para>
GAS has some macro capability included, as detailed in the texinfo docs.
Moreover, while GCC recognizes <filename>.s</filename> files as raw assembly
to send to GAS, it also recognizes <filename>.S</filename> files as files
to pipe through CPP before feeding them to GAS.
Again and again, see Linux sources for examples.
</para>

<para>
GAS also has GASP (GAS Preprocessor),
which adds all the usual macroassembly tricks to GAS.
GASP comes together with GAS in the GNU binutils archive.
It works as a filter, like <xref linkend="p-cpp"> and <xref linkend="p-m4">.
I have no idea on details, but it comes with its own texinfo documentation,
which you would like to browse (<command>info gasp</command>), print, grok.
GAS with GASP looks like a regular macro-assembler to me.
</para>

</section>

</section>

<section id="p-nasm" xreflabel="NASM">
<?html-filename nasm.html>
<title>NASM</title>

<para>
The Netwide Assembler project provides cool i386 assembler,
written in C, that should be modular enough
to eventually support all known syntaxes and object formats.
</para>

<section id="p-nasm-where">
<title>Where to find NASM</title>

<para>
<ulink url="http://nasm.sourceforge.net">http://nasm.sourceforge.net</ulink>, 
<ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/nasm/">http://sourceforge.net/projects/nasm/</ulink>

</para>

<para>
Binary release on your usual metalab mirror
in <filename>devel/lang/asm/</filename> directory.
Should also be available as <filename>.rpm</filename> or
<filename>.deb</filename> in your usual Linux distribution.
</para>

</section>

<section><title>What it does</title>

<para>
The syntax is Intel-style.
Comprehensive macroprocessing support is integrated.
</para>

<para>
Supported object file formats are
<literal>bin</literal>,
<literal>aout</literal>,
<literal>coff</literal>,
<literal>elf</literal>,
<literal>as86</literal>,
<literal>obj</literal> (DOS),
<literal>win32</literal>,
<literal>rdf</literal> (their own format).
</para>

<para>
NASM can be used as a backend for the free LCC compiler
(support files included).
</para>

<para>
Unless you're using BCC as a 16-bit compiler
(which is out of scope of this 32-bit HOWTO),
you should definitely use NASM instead of say AS86 or MASM,
because it runs on all platforms.
</para>

<note><para>
NASM comes with a disassembler, NDISASM.
</para></note>

<para>
Its hand-written parser makes it much faster than GAS,
though of course, it doesn't support three bazillion different architectures.
If you like Intel-style syntax, as opposed to GAS syntax,
then it should be the assembler of choice...
</para>

<para>
Note: There are <link linkend="s-res">few programs</link>
which may help you to convert source code between AT&amp;T and Intel assembler syntaxes;
some of the are capable of performing conversion in both directions.
</para>

</section>

</section>

<section id="p-other">
<?html-filename other.html>
<title>Other Assemblers</title>

<para>
There are other assemblers with various interesting and outstanding features
which may be of your interest as well.
</para>

<note><para>
They can be in various stages of development,
and can be non-classic/high-level/whatever else.
</para></note>

<section><title>AS86</title>

<para>
AS86 is a 80x86 assembler (16-bit and 32-bit) with integrated macro support.
It has mostly Intel-syntax, though it differs slightly as for addressing modes.
Some time ago it was used in a several projects, including the Linux kernel,
but eventually most of those projects have moved to GAS or NASM.
AFAIK, only ELKS continues to use it.
</para>

<para>
AS86 can be found at
<ulink url="http://www.cix.co.uk/~mayday/">
http://www.cix.co.uk/~mayday/</ulink>,
in bin86 package with linker (ld86), or as separate archive.
Documentation is available as the man page and as.doc from the source package.
When in doubt, the source code itself is often a good doc: though it is not
very well commented, the programming style is straightforward.
You might try to see how as86 is(was) used in ELKS, LILO, or Tunes 0.0.0.25...
</para>

<note><para>
A completely outdated version 0.4 of AS86 is distributed by HJLu
just to compile the Linux kernel versions prior to 2.4,
in a package named bin86, available in any Linux GCC repository.
But I advise no one to use it for anything else but compiling Linux.
This version supports only a hacked minix object file format,
which is not supported by the GNU binutils or anything,
and it has a few bugs in 32-bit mode,
so you really should better keep it only for compiling Linux.
</para></note>

<note>
<title>Using AS86 with BCC</title>

<para>
Here's the GNU Makefile entry for using BCC
to transform <filename>.s</filename> asm
into both a.out <filename>.o</filename> object
and <filename>.l</filename> listing:
</para>

<para><programlisting>
%.o %.l:	%.s
	bcc -3 -G -c -A-d -A-l -A$*.l -o $*.o $<
</programlisting></para>

<para>
Remove the <literal>%.l</literal>,
<literal>-A-l</literal>, and <literal>-A$*.l</literal>,
if you don't want any listing.
If you want something else than a.out,
you can examine BCC docs about the other supported formats,
and/or use the objcopy utility from the GNU binutils package.
</para>
</note>

</section>

<section><title>YASM</title>

<para>
YASM is a complete rewrite of the NASM assembler under the GNU GPL
(some portions are under the "new" BSD License). It is designed
from the ground up to allow for multiple syntaxes to be supported
(eg, NASM, TASM, GAS, etc.) in addition to multiple output object formats.
Another primary module of the overall design is an optimizer module.
</para>

<para>
It looks promising; it is under heavy development,
and you may want to take part.
See <ulink url="http://www.tortall.net/projects/yasm/">
http://www.tortall.net/projects/yasm/</ulink>.
</para>

</section>

<section><title>FASM</title>
<para>
FASM (flat assembler) is a fast, efficient 80x86 assembler
that runs in 'flat real mode'. Unlike many other 80x86 assemblers,
FASM only requires the source code to include the information it really needs. 
It is written in itself and is very small and fast.
It runs on DOS/Windows/Linux and can produce
flat binary, DOS EXE, Win32 PE, COFF and Linux ELF output.
See <ulink url="http://flatassembler.net">http://flatassembler.net</ulink>.
</para>
</section>

<section><title>OSIMPA (SHASM)</title>

<para>
osimpa is an assembler for Intel 80386 processors and subsequent, written
entirely in the GNU Bash command interpreter shell. The predecessor of osimpa
was shasm. osimpa is much cleaned up, can create useful Linux ELF executables,
and has various HLL-like extensions and programmer convenience commands.
</para>

<para>
It is (of course) slower than other assemblers.
It has its own syntax (and uses its own names for x86 opcodes)
Fairly good documentation is included.
Check it out:
<ulink url="ftp://linux01.gwdg.de/pub/cLIeNUX/interim/">
ftp://linux01.gwdg.de/pub/cLIeNUX/interim/</ulink>.
Probably you'll not use it on regular basis,
but at least it deserves your interest as an interesting idea.
</para>

</section>

<section><title>AASM</title>
<para>
Aasm is an advanced assembler designed to support several target architectures.
It has been designed to be easily extended and, should be considered as a good
alternative to monolithic assembler development for each new target CPUs
and binary file formats.
</para>
<para>
Aasm should make assembly programming easier for developer, by providing
a set of advanced features including symbol scopes, an expressions engine,
big integer support, macro capability, numerous and accurate warning messages...
Its dynamic modular architecture enables Aasm to extend its set of features
with plug-ins by taking advantages of dynamic libraries.
</para>
<para>
The input module supports Intel syntax (like nasm, tasm, masm, etc.).
The x86 assembler module supports all opcodes up to P6 including MMX, SSE
and 3DNow! extensions. F-CPU and SPARC assembler modules are under development.
Several output modules are available for ELF, COFF, IntelHex, and raw binary formats.
</para>
<para>
<ulink url="http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/aasm/">
http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/aasm/</ulink>
</para>

</section>

<section><title>TDASM</title>

<para>
The Table Driven Assembler (TDASM) is a <emphasis>free</emphasis> portable
cross assembler for any kind of assembly language.
It should be possible to use it as a compiler to any target microprocessor
using a table that defines the compilation process.
</para>

<para>
It is available from <ulink url="http://www.penguin.cz/~niki/tdasm/">
http://www.penguin.cz/~niki/tdasm/</ulink>.
</para>

</section>

<section><title>HLA</title>

<para>
<ulink url="http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/AsmTools/HLA/">HLA</ulink> is a
<emphasis remap="bold">H</Emphasis>igh
<emphasis remap="bold">L</Emphasis>evel
<emphasis remap="bold">A</Emphasis>ssembly language.
It uses a high level language like syntax
(similar to Pascal, C/C++, and other HLLs) for variable declarations,
procedure declarations, and procedure calls. It uses a modified
assembly language syntax for the standard machine instructions.
It also provides several high level language style control structures
(if, while, repeat..until, etc.) that help you write much more readable code.
</para>

<para>
HLA is free and comes with source, Linux and Win32 versions available.
On Win32 you need MASM and a 32-bit version of MS-link on Win32,
on Linux you nee GAS, because HLA produces specified assembler code
and uses that assembler for final assembling and linking.
</para>

</section>

<section><title>TALC</title>

<para>
<ulink url="http://www.cs.cornell.edu/talc/">TALC</ulink>
is another free MASM/Win32 based compiler
(however it supports ELF output, does it?).
</para>

<para>
TAL stands for
<emphasis>T</emphasis>yped
<emphasis>A</Emphasis>ssembly
<emphasis>L</Emphasis>anguage.
It extends traditional untyped assembly languages with typing annotations,
memory management primitives, and a sound set of typing rules, to guarantee
the memory safety, control flow safety,and type safety of TAL programs.
Moreover, the typing constructs are expressive enough to encode
most source language programming features including records and structures,
arrays, higher-order and polymorphic functions, exceptions, abstract data types,
subtyping, and modules. Just as importantly,
TAL is flexible enough to admit many low-level compiler optimizations.
Consequently, TAL is an ideal target platform for type-directed compilers
that want to produce verifiably safe code
for use in secure mobile code applications
or extensible operating system kernels.
</para>

</section>

<section><title>Free Pascal</title>

<para>
<ulink url="http://www.freepascal.org">Free Pascal</ulink>
has an internal 32-bit assembler (based on NASM tables)
and a switchable output that allows:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
Binary (ELF and coff when crosscompiled .o) output
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
NASM
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
MASM
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
TASM
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
AS (aout,coff, elf32)
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>

<para>
The MASM and TASM output are not as good debugged as the other two,
but can be handy sometimes.
</para>

<para>
The assembler's look and feel are based on Turbo Pascal's internal BASM,
and the IDE supports similar highlighting, and FPC can fully integrate
with gcc (on C level, not C++).
</para>

<para>
Using a dummy RTL, one can even generate pure assembler programs.
</para>

</section>

<section><title>Win32Forth assembler</title>

<para>
Win32Forth is a <emphasis>free</emphasis> 32-bit ANS FORTH system
that successfully runs under Win32s, Win95, Win/NT.
It includes a free 32-bit assembler (either prefix or postfix syntax)
integrated into the reflective FORTH language.
Macro processing is done with
the full power of the reflective language FORTH;
however, the only supported input and output contexts is Win32For itself
(no dumping of <filename>.obj</filename> file,
but you could add that feature yourself, of course).
Find it at
<ulink url="ftp://ftp.forth.org/pub/Forth/Compilers/native/windows/Win32For/">
ftp://ftp.forth.org/pub/Forth/Compilers/native/windows/Win32For/</ulink>.
</para>

</section>

<section><title>Terse</title>

<para>
<ulink url="http://www.terse.com">Terse</ulink>
is a programming tool that provides <emphasis>THE</emphasis> most compact
assembler syntax for the x86 family!
However, it is evil proprietary software.
It is said that there was a project for a free clone somewhere,
that was abandoned after worthless pretenses that the syntax
would be owned by the original author.
Thus, if you're looking for
a nifty programming project related to assembly hacking,
I invite you to develop a terse-syntax frontend to NASM,
if you like that syntax.
</para>

<para>
As an interesting historic remark, on
<ulink URL="news:comp.compilers">comp.compilers</ulink>,
</para>

<para><literallayout>
1999/07/11 19:36:51, the moderator wrote:

"There's no reason that assemblers have to have awful syntax.  About
30 years ago I used Niklaus Wirth's PL360, which was basically a S/360
assembler with Algol syntax and a a little syntactic sugar like while
loops that turned into the obvious branches.  It really was an
assembler, e.g., you had to write out your expressions with explicit
assignments of values to registers, but it was nice.  Wirth used it to
write Algol W, a small fast Algol subset, which was a predecessor to
Pascal.  As is so often the case, Algol W was a significant
improvement over many of its successors. -John"
</literallayout></para>

</section>

<section><title>Non-free and/or Non-32bit x86 assemblers</title>

<para>
You may find more about them,
together with the basics of x86 assembly programming, in the
<link linkend="s-res-gen">Raymond Moon's x86 assembly FAQ</link>.
</para>

<para>
Note that all DOS-based assemblers should work inside the Linux DOS Emulator,
as well as other similar emulators, so that if you already own one,
you can still use it inside a real OS.
Recent DOS-based assemblers also support COFF and/or other object file formats
that are supported by the GNU BFD library,
so that you can use them together with your free 32-bit tools,
perhaps using GNU objcopy (part of the binutils) as a conversion filter.
</para>

</section>

</section>

</chapter>


<chapter id="s-meta" xreflabel="Metaprogramming">
<?html-filename metaprogramming.html>
<title>Metaprogramming</title>

<para>
Assembly programming is a bore,
but for critical parts of programs.
</para>

<para>
You should use the appropriate tool for the right task,
so don't choose assembly when it does not fit;
C, OCaml, perl, Scheme, might be a better choice 
in the most cases.
</para>

<para>
However, there are cases when these tools do not give
fine enough control on the machine, and assembly is useful or needed.
In these cases you'll appreciate a system of macroprocessing and
metaprogramming that allows recurring patterns to be factored
each into one indefinitely reusable definition, which allows
safer programming, automatic propagation of pattern modification, etc.
Plain assembler often is not enough,
even when one is doing only small routines to link with C.
</para>

<section>
<?html-filename external.html>
<title>External filters</title>

<para>
Whatever is the macro support from your assembler,
or whatever language you use (even C!),
if the language is not expressive enough to you,
you can have files passed through an external filter
with a Makefile rule like that:
</para>

<para>

<programlisting>
%.s:    %.S other_dependencies
        $(FILTER) $(FILTER_OPTIONS) < $< > $@
</programlisting>

</para>

<section id="p-cpp" xreflabel="CPP">
<title>CPP</title>

<para>
CPP is truly not very expressive, but it's enough for easy things,
it's standard, and called transparently by GCC.
</para>

<para>
As an example of its limitations, you can't declare objects so that
destructors are automatically called at the end of the declaring block;
you don't have diversions or scoping, etc.
</para>

<para>
CPP comes with any C compiler.
However, considering how mediocre it is,
stay away from it if by chance you can make it without C.
</para>

</section>

<section id="p-m4" xreflabel="M4">
<title>M4</title>

<para>
M4 gives you the full power of macroprocessing,
with a Turing equivalent language, recursion, regular expressions, etc.
You can do with it everything that CPP cannot.
</para>

<para>
See
<ulink url="ftp://ftp.forth.org/pub/Forth/Compilers/native/unix/this4th.tar.gz">
macro4th (this4th)</ulink> or
<ulink url="ftp://ftp.tunes.org/pub/tunes/obsolete/dist/tunes.0.0.0/tunes.0.0.0.25.src.zip">
the Tunes 0.0.0.25 sources</ulink>
as examples of advanced macroprogramming using m4.
</para>

<para>
However, its disfunctional quoting and unquoting semantics force you to use
explicit continuation-passing tail-recursive macro style if
you want to do <emphasis>advanced</emphasis> macro programming
(which is remindful of TeX -- BTW, has anyone tried to use TeX as
a macroprocessor for anything else than typesetting ?).
This is NOT worse than CPP that does not allow quoting and recursion anyway.
</para>

<para>
The right version of M4 to get is <literal>GNU m4 1.4</literal>
(or later if exists),
which has the most features and the least bugs or limitations of all.
m4 is designed to be slow for anything but the simplest uses,
which might still be ok for most assembly programming
(you are not writing million-lines assembly programs, are you?).
</para>

</section>

<section><title>Macroprocessing with your own filter</title>

<para>
You can write your own simple macro-expansion filter
with the usual tools: perl, awk, sed, etc.
It can be made rather quickly, and you control everything.
But, of course, power in macroprocessing implies "the hard way".
</para>

</section>

</section>

<section>
<?html-filename meta.html>
<title>Metaprogramming</Title>

<para>
Instead of using an external filter that expands macros,
one way to do things is to write programs that write part
or all of other programs.
</para>

<para>
For instance, you could use a program outputting source code

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
to generate sine/cosine/whatever lookup tables,
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
to extract a source-form representation of a binary file,
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
to compile your bitmaps into fast display routines,
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
to extract documentation, initialization/finalization code,
description tables, as well as normal code from the same source files,
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
to have customized assembly code, generated from a perl/shell/scheme script
that does arbitrary processing,
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
to propagate data defined at one point only
into several cross-referencing tables and code chunks.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
etc.
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</para>

<para>
Think about it!
</para>

<section><title>Backends from compilers</title>

<para>
Compilers like GCC, SML/NJ, Objective CAML, MIT-Scheme, CMUCL, etc,
do have their own generic assembler backend,
which you might choose to use,
if you intend to generate code semi-automatically
from the according languages,
or from a language you hack:
rather than write great assembly code,
you may instead modify a compiler so that it dumps great assembly code!
</para>

</section>

<section><title>The New-Jersey Machine-Code Toolkit</title>

<para>
There is a project, using the programming language Icon
(with an experimental ML version),
to build a basis for producing assembly-manipulating code.
See around
<ulink url="http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~nr/toolkit/">
http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~nr/toolkit/</ulink>
</para>

</section>

<section><title>TUNES</title>

<para>
The <ulink url="http://www.tunes.org">TUNES Project</ulink>
for a Free Reflective Computing System
is developing its own assembler
as an extension to the Scheme language,
as part of its development process.
It doesn't run at all yet, though help is welcome.
</para>

<para>
The assembler manipulates abstract syntax trees,
so it could equally serve as the basis for a assembly syntax translator,
a disassembler, a common assembler/compiler back-end, etc.
Also, the full power of a real language, Scheme,
make it unchallenged as for macroprocessing/metaprogramming.
</para>

</section>

</section>

</chapter>


<chapter id="s-call" xreflabel="Calling conventions">
<?html-filename conventions.html>
<title>Calling conventions</title>

<section>
<?html-filename linux.html>
<title>Linux</title>

<section><title>Linking to GCC</title>

<para>
This is the preferred way if you are developing mixed C-asm project.
Check GCC docs and examples from Linux kernel <filename>.S</filename> files
that go through <application>gas</application>
(not those that go through <application>as86</application>).
</para>

<para>
32-bit arguments are pushed down stack in reverse syntactic order
(hence accessed/popped in the right order),
above the 32-bit near return address.
<literal>%ebp</literal>,
<literal>%esi</literal>,
<literal>%edi</literal>,
<literal>%ebx</literal>
are callee-saved, other registers are caller-saved;
<literal>%eax</literal> is to hold the result, or
<literal>%edx:%eax</literal> for 64-bit results.
</para>

<para>
FP stack: I'm not sure, but I think result is in
<literal>st(0)</literal>, whole stack caller-saved.
The SVR4 i386 ABI specs at
<ulink url="http://www.caldera.com/developer/devspecs/">
http://www.caldera.com/developer/devspecs/</ulink>
is a good reference point if you want more details.
</para>

<para>
Note that GCC has options to modify the calling conventions
by reserving registers, having arguments in registers,
not assuming the FPU, etc. Check the i386 <filename>.info</filename> pages.
</para>

<para>
Beware that you must then declare the <literal>cdecl</literal> or
<literal>regparm(0)</literal>
attribute for a function that will follow standard GCC calling conventions.
See <literal>C Extensions::Extended Asm::</literal> section
from the GCC info pages.
See also how Linux defines its <literal>asmlinkage</literal> macro...
</para>

</section>

<section><title>ELF vs a.out problems</title>

<para>
Some C compilers prepend an underscore before every symbol,
while others do not.
</para>

<para>
Particularly, Linux a.out GCC does such prepending,
while Linux ELF GCC does not.
</para>

<para>
If you need to cope with both behaviors at once,
see how existing packages do.
For instance, get an old Linux source tree,
the Elk, qthreads, or OCaml...
</para>

<para>
You can also override the implicit C->asm renaming
by inserting statements like

<programlisting>
	void foo asm("bar") (void);
</programlisting>

to be sure that the C function <function>foo()</function>
will be called really <function>bar</function> in assembly.
</para>

<para>
Note that the <command>objcopy</command> utility from the binutils package
should allow you to transform your a.out objects into ELF objects,
and perhaps the contrary too, in some cases.
More generally, it will do lots of file format conversions.
</para>

</section>

<section><title>Direct Linux syscalls</title>

<para>
Often you will be told that using 
<application>C library</application> (<acronym>libc</acronym>)
is the only way, and direct system calls are bad.
This is true. To some extent.
In general, you must know that <application>libc</application> is not sacred,
and in <emphasis>most</emphasis> cases it only does some checks,
then calls kernel, and then sets errno.
You can easily do this in your program as well (if you need to),
and your program will be dozen times smaller, and this will result
in improved performance as well, just because you're not using
shared libraries (static binaries are faster).
Using or not using <application>libc</application> in assembly programming
is more a question of taste/belief than something practical.
Remember, Linux is aiming to be POSIX compliant,
so does <application>libc</application>.
This means that syntax of almost all
<application>libc</application> "system calls"
exactly matches syntax of real kernel system calls (and vice versa).
Besides,
<application>GNU libc</application>(<application>glibc</application>)
becomes slower and slower from version to version,
and eats more and more memory; and so,
cases of using direct system calls become quite usual.
However, the main drawback of throwing <application>libc</application> away
is that you will possibly need to implement several
<application>libc</application> specific functions
(that are not just syscall wrappers) on your own
(<function>printf()</function> and Co.),
and you are ready for that, aren't you? :-)
</para>

<para>
Here is summary of direct system calls pros and cons.
</para>

<para>
Pros:

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
the smallest possible size; squeezing the last byte out of the system
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
the highest possible speed; squeezing cycles out of your favorite benchmark
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
full control: you can adapt your program/library
to your specific language or memory requirements or whatever
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
no pollution by libc cruft
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
no pollution by C calling conventions
(if you're developing your own language or environment)
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
static binaries make you independent from libc upgrades or crashes,
or from dangling <literal>#!</literal> path to an interpreter
(and are faster)
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
just for the fun out of it
(don't you get a kick out of assembly programming?)
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</para>

<para>
Cons:

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
If any other program on your computer uses the libc,
then duplicating the libc code will actually
wastes memory, not saves it.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
Services redundantly implemented in many static binaries
are a waste of memory.
But you can make your libc replacement a shared library.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
Size is much better saved by having some kind
of bytecode, wordcode, or structure interpreter
than by writing everything in assembly.
(the interpreter itself could be written either in C or assembly.)
The best way to keep multiple binaries small is
to not have multiple binaries, but instead
to have an interpreter process files with
<literal>#!</literal> prefix.
This is how OCaml works when used in wordcode mode
(as opposed to optimized native code mode),
and it is compatible with using the libc.
This is also how Tom Christiansen's
Perl PowerTools reimplementation of unix utilities works.
Finally, one last way to keep things small,
that doesn't depend on an external file with a hardcoded path,
be it library or interpreter,
is to have only one binary,
and have multiply-named hard or soft links to it:
the same binary will provide everything you need in an optimal space,
with no redundancy of subroutines or useless binary headers;
it will dispatch its specific behavior
according to its <parameter>argv[0]</parameter>;
in case it isn't called with a recognized name,
it might default to a shell,
and be possibly thus also usable as an interpreter!
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
You cannot benefit from the many functionalities that libc provides
besides mere linux syscalls:
that is, functionality described in section 3 of the manual pages,
as opposed to section 2,
such as malloc, threads, locale, password,
high-level network management, etc.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
Therefore, you might have to reimplement large parts of libc, from
<function>printf()</function> to
<function>malloc()</function> and
<function>gethostbyname</function>.
It's redundant with the libc effort,
and can be <emphasis>quite</emphasis> boring sometimes.
Note that some people have already reimplemented "light"
replacements for parts of the libc -- check them out!
(Redhat's minilibc,
Rick Hohensee's <ulink url="ftp://linux01.gwdg.de/pub/cLIeNUX/interim/libsys.tgz">libsys</ulink>,
Felix von Leitner's <ulink url="http://www.fefe.de/dietlibc/">dietlibc</ulink>,
Christian Fowelin's <ulink url="http://www.fowelin.de/christian/computer/libASM/">libASM</ulink>,
<ulink url="http://linuxassembly.org/asmutils.html">asmutils</ulink>
project is working on pure assembly libc)
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
Static libraries prevent you to benefit from libc upgrades as well as from
libc add-ons such as the <application>zlibc</application> package,
that does on-the-fly transparent decompression
of gzip-compressed files.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
The few instructions added by the libc can be
a <emphasis>ridiculously</emphasis> small speed overhead
as compared to the cost of a system call.
If speed is a concern, your main problem is in
your usage of system calls, not in their wrapper's implementation.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
Using the standard assembly API for system calls is much slower
than using the libc API when running in micro-kernel versions
of Linux such as L4Linux,
that have their own faster calling convention,
and pay high convention-translation overhead
when using the standard one
(L4Linux comes with libc recompiled with their syscall API;
of course, you could recompile your code with their API, too).
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
See previous discussion for general speed optimization issue.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
If syscalls are too slow to you,
you might want to hack the kernel sources (in C)
instead of staying in userland.
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</para>

<para>
If you've pondered the above pros and cons,
and still want to use direct syscalls,
then here is some advice.
</para>

<para>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
You can easily define your system calling functions
in a portable way in C (as opposed to unportable using assembly),
by including <filename>asm/unistd.h</filename>,
and using provided macros.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
Since you're trying to replace it,
go get the sources for the libc, and grok them.
(And if you think you can do better,
then send feedback to the authors!)
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
As an example of pure assembly code that does everything you want,
examine <xref linkend="s-res">.
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</para>

<para>
Basically, you issue an <function>int 0x80</function>, with the
<literal>__NR_</literal>syscallname number
(from <filename>asm/unistd.h</filename>) in <literal>eax</literal>,
and parameters (up to <link linkend="six-arg">six</link>) in
<literal>ebx</literal>,
<literal>ecx</literal>,
<literal>edx</literal>,
<literal>esi</literal>,
<literal>edi</literal>,
<link linkend="six-arg"><literal>ebp</literal></link> respectively.
</para>

<para>
Result is returned in <literal>eax</literal>,
with a negative result being an error,
whose opposite is what libc would put into <literal>errno</literal>.
The user-stack is not touched,
so you needn't have a valid one when doing a syscall.
</para>

<note><para><anchor id="six-arg">
Passing sixth parameter in <literal>ebp</literal>
appeared in Linux 2.4, previous Linux versions understand
only 5 parameters in registers.
</para></note>

<para>
<ulink url="http://www.tldp.org/LDP/lki/">Linux Kernel Internals</ulink>,
and especially
<ulink url="http://www.tldp.org/LDP/lki/lki-2.html#ss2.11">
How System Calls Are Implemented on i386 Architecture?</ulink>
chapter will give you more robust overview.
</para>

<para>
As for the invocation arguments passed to a process upon startup,
the general principle is that the stack
originally contains the number of arguments <parameter>argc</parameter>,
then the list of pointers that constitute <parameter>*argv</parameter>,
then a null-terminated sequence of null-terminated
<literal>variable=value</literal> strings for the
<parameter>environ</parameter>ment.
For more details,
do examine <xref linkend="s-res">,
read the sources of C startup code from your libc
(<filename>crt0.S</filename> or <filename>crt1.S</filename>),
or those from the Linux kernel
(<filename>exec.c</filename> and <filename>binfmt_*.c</filename>
in <filename>linux/fs/</filename>).
</para>

</section>

<section><title>Hardware I/O under Linux</title>

<para>
If you want to perform direct port I/O under Linux,
either it's something very simple that does not need OS arbitration,
and you should see the <literal>IO-Port-Programming</literal> mini-HOWTO;
or it needs a kernel device driver, and you should try to learn more about
kernel hacking, device driver development, kernel modules, etc,
for which there are other excellent HOWTOs and documents from the LDP.
</para>

<para>
Particularly, if what you want is Graphics programming,
then do join one of the
<ulink URL="http://www.ggi-project.org/">GGI</ulink> or
<ulink URL="http://www.XFree86.org/">XFree86</ulink> projects.
</para>

<para>
Some people have even done better,
writing small and robust XFree86 drivers
in an interpreted domain-specific language, GAL,
and achieving the efficiency of hand C-written drivers
through partial evaluation (drivers not only not in asm, but not even in C!).
The problem is that the partial evaluator they used
to achieve efficiency is not free software.
Any taker for a replacement?
</para>

<para>
Anyway, in all these cases, you'll be better when using GCC inline assembly
with the macros from <filename>linux/asm/*.h</filename>
than writing full assembly source files.
</para>

</section>

<section><title>Accessing 16-bit drivers from Linux/i386</title>

<para>
Such thing is theoretically possible
(proof: see how <ulink url="http://www.dosemu.org">DOSEMU</ulink>
can selectively grant hardware port access to programs),
and I've heard rumors that someone somewhere did actually do it
(in the PCI driver? Some VESA access stuff? ISA PnP? dunno).
If you have some more precise information on that,
you'll be most welcome.
Anyway, good places to look for more information are the Linux kernel sources,
DOSEMU sources,
and sources for various low-level programs under Linux...
(perhaps GGI if it supports VESA).
</para>

<para>
Basically, you must either use 16-bit protected mode or vm86 mode.
</para>

<para>
The first is simpler to setup, but only works with well-behaved code
that won't do any kind of segment arithmetics
or absolute segment addressing (particularly addressing segment 0),
unless by chance it happens that all segments used can be setup in advance
in the LDT.
</para>

<para>
The later allows for more "compatibility" with vanilla 16-bit environments,
but requires more complicated handling.
</para>

<para>
In both cases, before you can jump to 16-bit code,
you must

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
mmap any absolute address used in the 16-bit code
(such as ROM, video buffers, DMA targets, and memory-mapped I/O)
from <filename>/dev/mem</filename> to your process' address space,
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
setup the LDT and/or vm86 mode monitor.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
grab proper I/O permissions from the kernel (see the above section)
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</para>

<para>
Again, carefully read the source for the stuff contributed
to the DOSEMU project,
particularly these mini-emulators for running ELKS
and/or simple <filename>.COM</filename> programs under Linux/i386.
</para>

</section>

</section>

<section>
<?html-filename dos.html>
<title>DOS and Windows</title>

<para>
Most DOS extenders come with some interface to DOS services.
Read their docs about that,
but often, they just simulate <function>int 0x21</function> and such,
so you do "as if" you are in real mode
(I doubt they have more than stubs
and extend things to work with 32-bit operands;
they most likely will just reflect the interrupt
into the real-mode or vm86 handler).
</para>

<para>
Docs about DPMI (and much more) can be found on
<ulink url="ftp://x2ftp.oulu.fi/pub/msdos/programming/"></ulink>
(again, the original x2ftp site is closing (no more?), so use a
<ulink url="ftp://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/pc/x2ftp/README.mirror_sites">
mirror site</ulink>).
</para>

<para>
DJGPP comes with its own (limited)
<application>glibc</application> derivative/subset/replacement, too.
</para>

<para>
It is possible to cross-compile from Linux to DOS,
see the <filename>devel/msdos/</filename> directory
of your local FTP mirror for metalab.unc.edu;
Also see the MOSS DOS-extender from the
<ulink url="http://www.cs.utah.edu/projects/flux/">Flux project</ulink>
from the university of Utah.
</para>

<para>
Other documents and FAQs are more DOS-centered;
we do not recommend DOS development.
</para>

<formalpara><title>Windows and Co.</title>
<para>
This document is not about Windows programming,
you can find lots of documents about it everywhere...
The thing you should know is that there is the
<ulink URL="http://www.cygwin.com">cygwin32.dll library</ulink>,
for GNU programs to run on Win32 platform; thus, you can use GCC, GAS,
all the GNU tools, and many other Unix applications.
</para>
</formalpara>

</section>

<section>
<?html-filename ownos.html>
<title>Your own OS</title>

<para>
Control is what attracts many OS developers to assembly,
often is what leads to or stems from assembly hacking.
Note that any system that allows self-development
could be qualified an "OS",
though it can run "on the top" of an underlying system
(much like Linux over Mach or OpenGenera over Unix).
</para>

<para>
Hence, for easier debugging purpose,
you might like to develop your "OS" first as a process running
on top of Linux (despite the slowness), then use the
<ulink url="http://www.cs.utah.edu/projects/flux/oskit/">Flux OS kit</ulink>
(which grants use of Linux and BSD drivers in your own OS)
to make it stand-alone.
When your OS is stable, it is time to write your own
hardware drivers if you really love that.
</para>

<para>
This HOWTO will not cover topics such as
bootloader code,
getting into 32-bit mode,
handling Interrupts,
the basics about Intel protected mode or V86/R86 braindeadness,
defining your object format
and calling conventions.
</para>

<para>
The main place where to find reliable information about that all,
is source code of existing OSes and bootloaders.
Lots of pointers are on the following webpage:
<ulink url="http://www.tunes.org/Review/OSes.html">
http://www.tunes.org/Review/OSes.html</ulink>
</para>

</section>

</chapter>


<chapter id="s-quick" xreflabel="Quick Start">
<?html-filename quickstart.html>
<title>Quick start</title>

<section><title>Introduction</title>

<para>
Finally, if you still want to try this crazy idea and write something in
assembly (if you've reached this section -- you're real assembly fan),
here's what you need to start.
</para>

<para>
As you've read before, you can write for Linux in different ways;
I'll show how to use <emphasis>direct</emphasis> kernel calls,
since this is the fastest way to call kernel service;
our code is not linked to any library, does not use ELF interpreter,
it communicates with kernel directly.
</para>

<para>
I will show the same sample program in two assemblers,
<command>nasm</command> and <command>gas</command>,
thus showing Intel and AT&amp;T syntax.
</para>

<para>
You may also want to read <ulink url="http://linuxassembly.org/intro.html">
Introduction to UNIX assembly programming</ulink> tutorial,
it contains sample code for other UNIX-like OSes.
</para>

<para>
</para>

<section><title>Tools you need</title>

<para>
First of all you need assembler (compiler) --
<command>nasm</command> or <command>gas</command>.
</para>

<para>
Second, you need a linker -- <command>ld</command>,
since assembler produces only object code. Almost all distributions have
<application>gas</application> and <application>ld</application>,
in the binutils package.
</para>

<para>
As for <application>nasm</application>,
you may have to download and install binary packages for Linux and docs
from the <link linkend="p-nasm-where">nasm site</link>;
note that several distributions (Stampede, Debian, SuSe, Mandrake)
already have <application>nasm</application>, check first.
</para>

<para>
If you're going to dig in, you should also install include files for your OS,
and if possible, kernel source.
</para>

</section>

</section>

<section>
<?html-filename hello.html>
<title>Hello, world!</title>

<section><title>Program layout</title>

<para>
Linux is 32-bit, runs in protected mode, has flat memory model,
and uses the ELF format for binaries.
</para>

<para>
A program can be divided into sections:
<literal>.text</literal> for your code (read-only),
<literal>.data</literal> for your data (read-write),
<literal>.bss</literal> for uninitialized data (read-write);
there can actually be a few other standard sections,
as well as some user-defined sections,
but there's rare need to use them and they are out of our interest here.
A program must have at least <literal>.text</literal> section.
</para>

<para>
Now we will write our first program. Here is sample code:
</para>
</section>

<section><title>NASM (hello.asm)</title>

<para><programlisting>
section .text				;section declaration

			;we must export the entry point to the ELF linker or
    global _start	;loader. They conventionally recognize _start as their
			;entry point. Use ld -e foo to override the default.

_start:

;write our string to stdout

        mov     edx,len ;third argument: message length
        mov     ecx,msg ;second argument: pointer to message to write
        mov     ebx,1   ;first argument: file handle (stdout)
        mov     eax,4   ;system call number (sys_write)
        int     0x80	;call kernel

;and exit

	mov	ebx,0	;first syscall argument: exit code
        mov     eax,1   ;system call number (sys_exit)
        int     0x80	;call kernel

section .data				;section declaration

msg     db      "Hello, world!",0xa	;our dear string
len     equ     $ - msg                 ;length of our dear string

</programlisting></para>

</section>

<section><title>GAS (hello.S)</title>

<para><programlisting>
.text					# section declaration

			# we must export the entry point to the ELF linker or
    .global _start	# loader. They conventionally recognize _start as their
			# entry point. Use ld -e foo to override the default.

_start:

# write our string to stdout

	movl	$len,%edx	# third argument: message length
	movl	$msg,%ecx	# second argument: pointer to message to write
	movl	$1,%ebx		# first argument: file handle (stdout)
	movl	$4,%eax		# system call number (sys_write)
	int	$0x80		# call kernel

# and exit

	movl	$0,%ebx		# first argument: exit code
	movl	$1,%eax		# system call number (sys_exit)
	int	$0x80		# call kernel

.data					# section declaration

msg:
	.ascii	"Hello, world!\n"	# our dear string
	len = . - msg			# length of our dear string

</programlisting></para>

</section>

</section>

<section>
<?html-filename build.html>
<title>Building an executable</title>

<section><title>Producing object code</title>

<para>
First step of building an executable is compiling (or assembling)
object file from the source:
</para>

<para>
For <application>nasm</application> example:
</para>

<para><screen>
$ nasm -f elf hello.asm
</screen></para>

<para>
For <application>gas</application> example:
</para>

<para><screen>
$ as -o hello.o hello.S
</screen></para>

<para>
This makes <filename>hello.o</filename> object file.
</para>

</section>

<section><title>Producing executable</title>

<para>
Second step is producing executable file itself
from the object file by invoking linker:
</para>

<para><screen>
$ ld -s -o hello hello.o
</screen></para>

<para>
This will finally build <filename>hello</filename> executable.
</para>

<para>
Hey, try to run it... Works? That's it. Pretty simple.
</para>

</section>

</section>

<section>
<?html-filename mips.html>
<title>MIPS Example</title>

<para>
As a demonstration of a fact that there's a universe other than x86,
here comes an example program for MIPS by Spencer Parkin.
BTW, if you've got here, you may also want to see
<ulink url="http://www.cuillin.demon.co.uk/nazz/trivia/hw/hw_assembler.html">
A Collection of Assembler Hello World Programs
</ulink>.

</para>

<para><programlisting><![CDATA[
# hello.S	by Spencer T. Parkin

# This is my first MIPS-RISC assembly program!
# To compile this program type:
# > gcc -o hello hello.S -non_shared

# This program compiles without errors or warnings
# on a PlayStation2 MIPS R5900 (EE Core).
# EE stands for Emotion Engine...lame!

# The -non_shared option tells gcc that we`re
# not interrested in compiling relocatable code.
# If we were, we would need to follow the PIC-
# ABI calling conventions and other protocols.

#include <asm/regdef.h>		// ...for human readable register names
#include <asm/unistd.h>		// ...for system serivices			

		.rdata					# begin read-only data segment
		.align		2			# because of the way memory is built
hello:		.asciz		"Hello, world!\n"	# a null terminated string
		.align		4			# because of the way memory is built
length:		.word		. - hello		# length = IC - (hello-addr)
		.text					# begin code segment
		.globl		main			# for gcc/ld linking
		.ent		main			# for gdb debugging info.
main:		# We must specify -non_shared to gcc or we`ll need these 3 lines that fallow.
#		.set		noreorder		# disable instruction reordering
#		.cpload		t9			# PIC ABI crap (function prologue)
#		.set		reorder			# re-enable instruction reordering
		move		a0,$0			# load stdout fd
		la		a1,hello		# load string address
		lw		a2,length		# load string length
		li		v0,__NR_write		# specify system write service
		syscall					# call the kernel (write string)
		li		v0,0			# load return code
		j		ra			# return to caller
		.end		main			# for dgb debugging info.

# That`s all folks!
]]></programlisting></para>

</section>

</chapter>


<chapter id="s-res" xreflabel="Linux assembly resources">
<?html-filename resources.html>
<title>Resources</title>

<simplesect id="s-res-url"><title>Pointers</title>

<para>
Your main resource for Linux/UNIX assembly programming material is:
</para>

<blockquote><para>
<ulink url="http://linuxassembly.org/resources.html">
http://linuxassembly.org/resources.html</ulink>
</para></blockquote>

<para>
Do visit it, and get plenty of pointers to assembly projects,
tools, tutorials, documentation, guides, etc,
concerning different UNIX operating systems and CPUs.
Because it evolves quickly, I will no longer duplicate it here.
</para>

<para>
If you are new to assembly in general, here are few starting pointers:

<anchor id="s-res-gen">

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
<ulink url="http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/AoA/">The Art Of Assembly</ulink>
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
x86 assembly FAQ (use Google)
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
<ulink url="http://www.koth.org">CoreWars</ulink>,
a fun way to learn assembly in general
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
Usenet:
<ulink url="news://comp.lang.asm.x86">comp.lang.asm.x86</ulink>;
<ulink url="news://alt.lang.asm">alt.lang.asm</ulink>
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</para>

</simplesect>

<simplesect id="s-res-list">
<title>Mailing list</title>

<para>
If you're are interested in Linux/UNIX assembly programming
(or have questions, or are just curious)
I especially invite you to join Linux assembly programming mailing list.
</para>

<para>
This is an open discussion of assembly programming under Linux, *BSD, BeOS,
or any other UNIX/POSIX like OS; also it is not limited to x86 assembly
(Alpha, Sparc, PPC and other hackers are welcome too!).
</para>

<para>
Mailing list address is <email>linux-assembly@vger.kernel.org</email>.
</para>

<para>
To subscribe send a messgage to <email>majordomo@vger.kernel.org</email>
with the following line in the body of the message:

<programlisting>
subscribe linux-assembly
</programlisting>
</para>

<para>
Detailed information and list archives are available at
<ulink url="http://linuxassembly.org/list.html">
http://linuxassembly.org/list.html</ulink>.
</para>

</simplesect>

</chapter>


<chapter id="s-faq" xreflabel="FAQ">
<?html-filename=faq.html>
<title>Frequently Asked Questions</title>

<para>
Here are frequently asked questions (with answers)
about Linux assembly programming.
Some of the questions (and the answers) were taken from the
the <link linkend="s-res-list">linux-assembly mailing list</link>.
</para>

<qandaset defaultlabel="number">

<qandaentry>

<question><para>
How do I do graphics programming in Linux?
</para></question>

<answer>

<para>
An answer from <ulink url="mailto:paulf@gam.co.za">Paul Furber</ulink>:
</para>

<para><screen>
Ok you have a number of options to graphics in Linux. Which one you use
depends on what you want to do. There isn't one Web site with all the
information but here are some tips:

SVGALib: This is a C library for console SVGA access.
Pros: very easy to learn, good coding examples, not all that different
from equivalent gfx libraries for DOS, all the effects you know from DOS
can be converted with little difficulty.
Cons: programs need superuser rights to run since they write directly to
the hardware, doesn't work with all chipsets, can't run under X-Windows.
Search for svgalib-1.4.x on http://ftp.is.co.za

Framebuffer: do it yourself graphics at SVGA res
Pros: fast, linear mapped video access, ASM can be used if you want :)
Cons: has to be compiled into the kernel, chipset-specific issues, must
switch out of X to run, relies on good knowledge of linux system calls
and kernel, tough to debug
Examples: asmutils (http://www.linuxassembly.org) and the leaves example
and my own site for some framebuffer code and tips in asm
(http://ma.verick.co.za/linux4k/)

Xlib: the application and development libraries for XFree86.
Pros: Complete control over your X application
Cons: Difficult to learn, horrible to work with and requires quite a bit
of knowledge as to how X works at the low level. 
Not recommended but if you're really masochistic go for it. All the
include and lib files are probably installed already so you have what
you need. 

Low-level APIs: include PTC, SDL, GGI and Clanlib
Pros: very flexible, run under X or the console, generally abstract away
the video hardware a little so you can draw to a linear surface, lots of
good coding examples, can link to other APIs like OpenGL and sound libs,
Windows DirectX versions for free
Cons: Not as fast as doing it yourself, often in development so versions
can (and do) change frequently.
Examples: PTC and GGI have excellent demos, SDL is used in sdlQuake,
Myth II, Civ CTP and Clanlib has been used for games as well.

High-level APIs: OpenGL - any others?
Pros: clean api, tons of functionality and examples, industry standard
so you can learn from SGI demos for example
Cons: hardware acceleration is normally a must, some quirks between
versions and platforms
Examples: loads - check out www.mesa3d.org under the links section.

To get going try looking at the svgalib examples and also install SDL
and get it working. After that, the sky's the limit.
</screen></para>

</answer></qandaentry>

<qandaentry>

<question><para>
How do I debug pure assembly code under Linux?
</para></question>

<answer>

<para>
There's an early version of the
<ulink url="http://ald.sourceforge.net">Assembly Language Debugger</ulink>,
which is designed to work with assembly code,
and is portable enough to run on Linux and *BSD.
It is already functional and should be the right choice, check it out!
</para>

<para>
You can also try <command>gdb</command> ;).
Although it is source-level debugger, it can be used to debug
pure assembly code, and with some trickery you can make
<command>gdb</command> to do what you need
(unfortunately, nasm '-g' switch does not generate
proper debug info for gdb; this is nasm bug, I think).
Here's an answer from <ulink url="mailto:dl@gazeta.ru">Dmitry Bakhvalov</ulink>:
</para>

<para><screen>
Personally, I use gdb for debugging asmutils. Try this:
 
1) Use the following stuff to compile:
   $ nasm -f elf -g smth.asm
   $ ld -o smth smth.o

2) Fire up gdb:
   $ gdb smth

3) In gdb:
   (gdb) disassemble _start
   Place a breakpoint at _start+1 (If placed at _start the breakpoint
   wouldnt work, dunno why)
   (gdb) b *0x8048075

   To step thru the code I use the following macro:
   (gdb)define n
   >ni
   >printf "eax=%x ebx=%x ...etc...",$eax,$ebx,...etc...
   >disassemble $pc $pc+15
   >end

   Then start the program with r command and debug with n.

   Hope this helps.
</screen></para>

<para>
An additional note from ???:
</para>

<para><screen>
    I have such a macro in my .gdbinit for quite some time now, and it
    for sure makes life easier. A small difference : I use "x /8i $pc",
    which guarantee a fixed number of disassembled instructions. Then,
    with a well chosen size for my xterm, gdb output looks like it is
    refreshed, and not scrolling.
</screen></para>

<para>
If you want to set breakpoints across your code, you can just use
<function>int 3</function> instruction as breakpoint
(instead of entering address manually in <command>gdb</command>).
</para>

<para>
If you're using <application>gas</application>, you should consult
<application>gas</application> and <application>gdb</application> related
<ulink url="http://linuxassembly.org/resources.html#tutorials">tutorials</ulink>.
</para>

</answer>

</qandaentry>

<qandaentry>

<question><para>Any other useful debugging tools?</para></question>

<answer><para>
Definitely <command>strace</command> can help a lot
(<command>ktrace</command> and <command>kdump</command>
on FreeBSD),
it is used to trace system calls and signals.
Read its manual page (<command>man strace</command>) and
<command>strace --help</command> output for details.
</para></answer>

</qandaentry>

<qandaentry>

<question><para>
How do I access BIOS functions from Linux (BSD, BeOS, etc)?
</para></question>

<answer><para>
Short answer is -- noway. This is protected mode, use OS services instead.
Again, you can't use <function>int 0x10</function>,
<function>int 0x13</function>, etc.
Fortunately almost everything can be implemented
by means of system calls or library functions.
In the worst case you may go through direct port access,
or make a kernel patch to implement needed functionality,
or use LRMI library to access BIOS functions.
</para></answer>

</qandaentry>

<qandaentry>

<question><para>
Is it possible to write kernel modules in assembly?
</para></question>

<answer>

<para>
Yes, indeed it is. While in general it is not a good idea
(it hardly will speedup anything), there may be a need of such wizardy. 
The process of writing a module itself is not that hard --
a module must have some predefined global function,
it may also need to call some external functions from the kernel.
Examine kernel source code (that can be built as module) for details.
</para>

<para>
Meanwhile, here's an example of a minimum dumb kernel module
(<filename>module.asm</filename>)
(source is based on example by mammon_ from APJ #8):
</para>

<para><programlisting>
section .text

	global init_module
	global cleanup_module
	global kernel_version

	extern printk

init_module:
	push	dword str1
	call	printk
	pop	eax
	xor	eax,eax
	ret

cleanup_module:
	push	dword str2
	call	printk
	pop	eax
	ret
	
str1		db	"init_module done",0xa,0
str2		db	"cleanup_module done",0xa,0

kernel_version	db	"2.2.18",0
</programlisting></para>

<para>
The only thing this example does is reporting its actions.
Modify <filename>kernel_version</filename> to match yours, and build module with:
</para>

<para><screen>
$ nasm -f elf -o module.m module.asm
</screen></para>

<para><screen>
$ ld -r -o module.o module.m
</screen></para>

<para>
Now you can play with it using <command>insmod/rmmod/lsmod</command>
(root privilidged are required); a lot of fun, huh?
</para>

</answer></qandaentry>

<qandaentry>

<question><para>
How do I allocate memory dynamically?
</para></question>

<answer>
<para>
A laconic answer from <ulink url="mailto:phpr@snafu.de">H-Peter Recktenwald</ulink>:
</para>

<para><programlisting>
	ebx := 0	(in fact, any value below .bss seems to do)
	sys_brk
	eax := current top (of .bss section)

	ebx := [ current top < ebx < (esp - 16K) ]
	sys_brk
	eax := new top of .bss
</programlisting></para>
</answer>

<answer>
<para>
An extensive answer from <ulink url="mailto:ee97034@fe.up.pt">Tiago Gasiba</ulink>:
</para>
<para><programlisting>
section	.bss

var1	resb	1

section	.text

;
;allocate memory
;

%define	LIMIT	0x4000000			; about 100Megs

	mov	ebx,0				; get bottom of data segment
	call	sys_brk

	cmp	eax,-1				; ok?
	je	erro1

	add	eax,LIMIT			; allocate +LIMIT memory
	mov	ebx,eax
	call	sys_brk
	
	cmp	eax,-1				; ok?
	je	erro1

	cmp	eax,var1+1			; has the data segment grown?
	je	erro1

;
;use allocated memory
;
						; now eax contains bottom of
						; data segment
	mov	ebx,eax				; save bottom
	mov	eax,var1			; eax=beginning of data segment
repeat:	
	mov	word	[eax],1			; fill up with 1's
	inc	eax
	cmp	ebx,eax				; current pos = bottom?
	jne	repeat

;
;free memory
;

	mov	ebx,var1			; deallocate memory
	call	sys_brk				; by forcing its beginning=var1

	cmp	eax,-1				; ok?
	je	erro2
</programlisting></para>
</answer>

</qandaentry>

<qandaentry>

<question><para>
I can't understand how to use <function>select</function> system call!
</para></question>

<answer>
<para>
An answer from <ulink url="mailto:mochel@transmeta.com">Patrick Mochel</ulink>:
</para>

<para><programlisting>
When you call sys_open, you get back a file descriptor, which is simply an
index into a table of all the open file descriptors that your process has.
stdin, stdout, and stderr are always 0, 1, and 2, respectively, because
that is the order in which they are always open for your process from there.
Also, notice that the first file descriptor that you open yourself (w/o first
closing any of those magic three descriptors) is always 3, and they increment
from there.

Understanding the index scheme will explain what select does. When you
call select, you are saying that you are waiting certain file descriptors
to read from, certain ones to write from, and certain ones to watch from
exceptions from. Your process can have up to 1024 file descriptors open,
so an fd_set is just a bit mask describing which file descriptors are valid
for each operation. Make sense?

Since each fd that you have open is just an index, and it only needs to be
on or off for each fd_set, you need only 1024 bits for an fd_set structure.
1024 / 32 = 32 longs needed to represent the structure.

Now, for the loose example.
Suppose you want to read from a file descriptor (w/o timeout).

- Allocate the equivalent to an fd_set.  

.data

my_fds: times 32 dd 0

- open the file descriptor that you want to read from.

- set that bit in the fd_set structure.

   First, you need to figure out which of the 32 dwords the bit is in.  

   Then, use bts to set the bit in that dword. bts will do a modulo 32
   when setting the bit. That's why you need to first figure out which
   dword to start with.

   mov edx, 0
   mov ebx, 32
   div ebx

   lea ebx, my_fds
   bts ebx[eax * 4], edx

- repeat the last step for any file descriptors you want to read from.

- repeat the entire exercise for either of the other two fd_sets if you want action from them.

That leaves two other parts of the equation - the n paramter and the timeout
parameter. I'll leave the timeout parameter as an exercise for the reader
(yes, I'm lazy), but I'll briefly talk about the n parameter.

It is the value of the largest file descriptor you are selecting from (from
any of the fd_sets), plus one. Why plus one? Well, because it's easy to
determine a mask from that value. Suppose that there is data available on
x file descriptors, but the highest one you care about is (n - 1). Since
an fd_set is just a bitmask, the kernel needs some efficient way for
determining whether to return or not from select. So, it masks off the bits
that you care about, checks if anything is available from the bits that are
still set, and returns if there is (pause as I rummage through kernel source).
Well, it's not as easy as I fantasized it would be. To see how the kernel
determines that mask, look in fs/select.c in the kernel source tree.

Anyway, you need to know that number, and the easiest way to do it is to save
the value of the last file descriptor open somewhere so you don't lose it.

Ok, that's what I know. A warning about the code above (as always) is that
it is not tested. I think it should work, but if it doesn't let me know.
But, if it starts a global nuclear meltdown, don't call me. ;-)
</programlisting></para>

</answer></qandaentry>

</qandaset>

<para>
<emphasis>That's all for now, folks</emphasis>.
</para>

</chapter>

<!--
	end
-->


<appendix id="a-history"><title>History</title>
<?html-filename history.html>

<para>
Each version includes a few fixes and minor corrections,
that need not to be repeatedly mentioned every time.
</para>

<para><revhistory>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.6g</revnumber><date>11 Feb 2006</date><authorinitials>konst</authorinitials>
<revremark>
Added AASM,
updated FASM,
added MIPS example to &s-quick; section,
added URLs to Turkish and Russian translations,
misc URL updates
</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.6f</revnumber><date>17 Aug 2002</date><authorinitials>konst</authorinitials>
<revremark>
Added FASM,
added URL to Korean translation,
added URL to SVR4 i386 ABI specs,
update on HLA/Linux,
small fix in hello.S example,
misc URL updates
</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.6e</revnumber><date>12 Jan 2002</date><authorinitials>konst</authorinitials>
<revremark>
Added URL describing GAS Intel syntax;
Added OSIMPA(former SHASM);
Added YASM;
FAQ update.
</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.6d</revnumber><date>18 Mar 2001</date><authorinitials>konst</authorinitials>
<revremark>
Added Free Pascal;
new NASM URL again
</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.6c</revnumber><date>15 Feb 2001</date><authorinitials>konst</authorinitials>
<revremark>
Added SHASM;
new answer in FAQ, new NASM URL, new mailing list address
</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.6b</revnumber><date>21 Jan 2001</date><authorinitials>konst</authorinitials>
<revremark>
new questions in FAQ, corrected few URLs
</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.6a</revnumber><date>10 Dec 2000</date><authorinitials>konst</authorinitials>
<revremark>
Remade section on AS86 (thanks to Holluby Istvan for pointing out
obsolete information).
Fixed several URLs that can be incorrectly rendered from sgml to html.
</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.6</revnumber><date>11 Nov 2000</date><authorinitials>konst</authorinitials>
<revremark>
HOWTO is completely rewritten using DocBook DTD.
Layout is totally rearranged;
too much changes to list them here.
</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.5n</revnumber><date>07 Nov 2000</date><authorinitials>konst</authorinitials>
<revremark>
Added question regarding kernel modules to &s-faq;,
fixed NASM URLs, GAS has Intel syntax too
</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.5m</revnumber><date>22 Oct 2000</date><authorinitials>konst</authorinitials>
<revremark>
Linux 2.4 system calls can have 6 args,
Added ALD note to &s-faq;,
fixed mailing list subscribe address
</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.5l</revnumber><date>23 Aug 2000</date><authorinitials>konst</authorinitials>
<revremark>Added TDASM, updates on NASM</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.5k</revnumber><date>11 Jul 2000</date><authorinitials>konst</authorinitials>
<revremark>Few additions to FAQ</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.5j</revnumber><date>14 Jun 2000</date><authorinitials>konst</authorinitials>
<revremark>
Complete rearrangement of &s-intro; and &s-res; sections.
&s-faq; added to &s-res;, misc cleanups and additions.
</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.5i</revnumber><date>04 May 2000</date><authorinitials>konst</authorinitials>
<revremark>
Added HLA, TALC;
rearrangements in &s-res;, &s-quick; &s-assem; sections. Few new pointers.
</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.5h</revnumber><date>09 Apr 2000</date><authorinitials>konst</authorinitials>
<revremark>
finally managed to state LDP license on document,
new resources added, misc fixes
</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.5g</revnumber><date>26 Mar 2000</date><authorinitials>konst</authorinitials>
<revremark>new resources on different CPUs</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.5f</revnumber><date>02 Mar 2000</date><authorinitials>konst</authorinitials>
<revremark>new resources, misc corrections</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.5e</revnumber><date>10 Feb 2000</date><authorinitials>konst</authorinitials>
<revremark>URL updates, changes in GAS example</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.5d</revnumber><date>01 Feb 2000</date><authorinitials>konst</authorinitials>
<revremark>
&s-res; (former "Pointers") section completely redone,
various URL updates.
</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.5c</revnumber><date>05 Dec 1999</date><authorinitials>konst</authorinitials>
<revremark>
New pointers, updates and some rearrangements.
Rewrite of sgml source.
</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.5b</revnumber><date>19 Sep 1999</date><authorinitials>konst</authorinitials>
<revremark>
Discussion about libc or not libc continues.
New web pointers and and overall updates.
</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.5a</revnumber><date>01 Aug 1999</date><authorinitials>konst</authorinitials>
<revremark>
&s-quick; section rearranged, added GAS example.
Several new web pointers.
</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.5</revnumber><date>01 Aug 1999</date>
<authorinitials>konst</authorinitials>
<authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
<revremark>
GAS has 16-bit mode.
New maintainer (at last): Konstantin Boldyshev.
Discussion about libc or not libc.
Added &s-quick; section with examples of assembly code.
</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.4q</revnumber><date>22 Jun 1999</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
<revremark>
process argument passing (argc, argv, environ) in assembly.
This is yet another
"last release by Fare before new maintainer takes over".
Nobody knows who might be the new maintainer.
</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.4p</revnumber><date>06 Jun 1999</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
<revremark>clean up and updates</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.4o</revnumber><date>01 Dec 1998</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.4m</revnumber><date>23 Mar 1998</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
<revremark>corrections about gcc invocation</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.4l</revnumber><date>16 Nov 1997</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
<revremark>release for LSL 6th edition</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.4k</revnumber><date>19 Oct 1997</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.4j</revnumber><date>07 Sep 1997</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.4i</revnumber><date>17 Jul 1997</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
<revremark>info on 16-bit mode access from Linux</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.4h</revnumber><date>19 Jun 1997</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
<revremark>
still more on "how not to use assembly";
updates on NASM, GAS.
</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.4g</revnumber><date>30 Mar 1997</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.4f</revnumber><date>20 Mar 1997</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.4e</revnumber><date>13 Mar 1997</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
<revremark>Release for DrLinux</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.4d</revnumber><date>28 Feb 1997</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
<revremark>Vapor announce of a new Assembly-HOWTO maintainer</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.4c</revnumber><date>09 Feb 1997</date>
<authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
<revremark>Added section &s-doyou;.</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.4b</revnumber><date>03 Feb 1997</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
<revremark>NASM moved: now is before AS86</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.4a</revnumber><date>20 Jan 1997</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
<revremark>CREDITS section added</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.4</revnumber><date>20 Jan 1997</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
<revremark>first release of the HOWTO as such</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.4pre1</revnumber><date>13 Jan 1997</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
<revremark>
text mini-HOWTO transformed into a full linuxdoc-sgml HOWTO,
to see what the SGML tools are like
</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.3l</revnumber><date>11 Jan 1997</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.3k</revnumber><date>19 Dec 1996</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
<revremark>What? I had forgotten to point to terse???</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.3j</revnumber><date>24 Nov 1996</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
<revremark>point to French translated version</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.3i</revnumber><date>16 Nov 1996</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
<revremark>NASM is getting pretty slick</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.3h</revnumber><date>06 Nov 1996</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
<revremark>
more about cross-compiling -- See on sunsite: devel/msdos/
</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.3g</revnumber><date>02 Nov 1996</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
<revremark>
Created the History. Added pointers in cross-compiling section.
Added section about I/O programming under Linux (particularly video).
</revremark>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.3f</revnumber><date>17 Oct 1996</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.3c</revnumber><date>15 Jun 1996</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.2</revnumber><date>04 May 1996</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
</revision>

<revision>
<revnumber>0.1</revnumber><date>23 Apr 1996</date><authorinitials>fare</authorinitials>
<revremark>
Francois-Rene "Fare" Rideau creates and publishes the first mini-HOWTO,
because "I'm sick of answering ever the same questions
on comp.lang.asm.x86"
</revremark>
</revision>

</revhistory></para>

</appendix>


<appendix id="a-ack"><title>Acknowledgements</title>
<?html-filename acknowledgements.html>

<para>
I would like to thank all the people who have contributed ideas,
answers, remarks, and moral support, and additionally
the following persons, by order of appearance:

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
<ulink URL="mailto:buried.alive@in.mail">Linus Torvalds</ulink>
for Linux
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
<anchor id="bde">
<ulink URL="mailto:bde@zeta.org.au">Bruce Evans</ulink>
for bcc from which as86 is extracted
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
<ulink URL="mailto:anakin@pobox.com">Simon Tatham</ulink> and
<ulink URL="mailto:jules@earthcorp.com">Julian Hall</ulink>
for NASM
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
<ulink URL="mailto:gregh@metalab.unc.edu">Greg Hankins</ulink> and now
<ulink URL="mailto:linux-howto@metalab.unc.edu">Tim Bynum</ulink>
for maintaining HOWTOs
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
<ulink URL="mailto:raymoon@moonware.dgsys.com">Raymond Moon</ulink>
for his FAQ
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
<ulink URL="mailto:dumas@linux.eu.org">Eric Dumas</ulink>
for his translation of the mini-HOWTO into French
(sad thing for the original author to be French and write in English)
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
<ulink URL="mailto:paul@geeky1.ebtech.net">Paul Anderson</ulink> and
<ulink URL="mailto:rahim@megsinet.net">Rahim Azizarab</ulink>
for helping me, if not for taking over the HOWTO
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
<ulink URL="mailto:pcg@goof.com">Marc Lehman</ulink>
for his insight on GCC invocation
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
<ulink URL="mailto:ams@wiw.org">Abhijit Menon-Sen</ulink>
for helping me figure out the argument passing convention
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

</para>

</appendix>


<appendix id="a-endor">
<?html-filename endorsements.html>
<title>Endorsements</title>
<para>
This version of the document is endorsed by 
<link linkend="konst">Konstantin Boldyshev</link>.
</para>

<para>
Modifications (including translations) must remove this appendix
according to the <link linkend="a-gfdl">license agreement</link>.
</para>

<para><literal>
$Id$
</literal></para>
</appendix>


<appendix id="a-gfdl" xreflabel="GNU Free Documentation License">
<?html-filename fdl.html>
<title>GNU Free Documentation License</title>

<para><literallayout>
GNU Free Documentation License
Version 1.1, March 2000

    Copyright (C) 2000  Free Software Foundation, Inc.
    59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
    Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
    of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
</literallayout></para>

<para><variablelist>

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<varlistentry><term>4. MODIFICATIONS</term><listitem>

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<varlistentry><term>5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS</term><listitem>

    <para>You may combine the Document with other documents released
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</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS</term><listitem>

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</variablelist></para>

</appendix>  

</book>