|
This tutorial assumes that the reader knows how to use MASM. If you're not
familiar with MASM, download win32asm.exe and study the text inside the package
before going on with the tutorial. Good. You're now ready. Let's go!
Theory:
Win32 programs run in protected mode which is available since 80286. But
80286 is now history. So we only have to concern ourselves with 80386 and its
descendants. Windows runs each Win32 program in separated virtual space. That
means each Win32 program will have its own 4 GB address space. However, this
doesn't mean every win32 program has 4GB of physical memory, only that the
program can address any address in that range. Windows will do anything
necessary to make the memory the program references valid. Of course, the
program must adhere to the rules set by Windows, else it will cause the dreaded
General Protection Fault. Each program is alone in its address space. This is in
contrast to the situation in Win16. All Win16 programs can *see* each other. Not
so under Win32. This feature helps reduce the chance of one program writing over
other program's code/data.
Memory model is also drastically different from the old days of the 16-bit
world. Under Win32, we need not be concerned with memory model or segments
anymore! There's only one memory model: Flat memory model. There's no more 64K
segments. The memory is a large continuous space of 4 GB. That also means
you don't have to play with segment registers. You can use any segment register
to address any point in the memory space. That's a GREAT help to programmers.
This is what makes Win32 assembly programming as easy as C.
When you program under Win32, you must know some important rules. One such rule
is that, Windows uses esi, edi, ebp and ebx internally and it doesn't expect the
values in those registers to change. So remember this rule first: if you use any
of those four registers in your callback function, don't ever forget to restore
them before returning control to Windows. A callback function is your own
function which is called by Windows. The obvious example is the windows
procedure. This doesn't mean that you cannot use those four registers, you can.
Just be sure to restore them back before passing control back to Windows.
Content:
Here's the skeleton program. If you don't understand some of the codes, don't
panic. I'll explain each of them later.
.386
.MODEL Flat, STDCALL
.DATA
<Your initialized data>
......
.DATA?
<Your uninitialized data>
......
.CONST
<Your constants>
......
.CODE
<label>
<Your code>
.....
end <label>
That's all! Let's analyze this skeleton program.
.386
This is an assembler directive, telling the assembler to use 80386
instruction set. You can also use .486, .586 but the safest bet is to stick to
.386. There are actually two nearly identical forms for each CPU model.
.386/.386p, .486/.486p. Those "p" versions are necessary only when
your program uses privileged instructions. Privileged instructions are the
instructions reserved by the CPU/operating system when in protected mode. They
can only be used by privileged code, such as the virtual device drivers. Most of
the time, your program will work in non-privileged mode so it's safe to use
non-p versions.
.MODEL FLAT, STDCALL
.MODEL is an assembler directive that specifies memory model of your program.
Under Win32, there's only on model, FLAT model.
STDCALL tells MASM about parameter passing convention. Parameter passing
convention specifies the order of parameter passing, left-to-right or
right-to-left, and also who will balance the stack frame after the function
call.
Under Win16, there are two types of calling convention, C and PASCAL
C calling convention passes parameters from right to left, that is , the
rightmost parameter is pushed first. The caller is responsible for balancing the
stack frame after the call. For example, in order to call a function named
foo(int first_param, int second_param, int third_param) in C calling convention
the asm codes will look like this:
push [third_param]
; Push the third parameter
push [second_param]
; Followed by the second
push [first_param]
; And the first
call foo
add sp, 12
; The caller balances the stack frame
PASCAL calling convention is the reverse of C calling convention. It passes
parameters from left to right and the callee is responsible for the stack
balancing after the call.
Win16 adopts PASCAL convention because it produces smaller codes. C
convention is useful when you don't know how many parameters will be passed to
the function as in the case of wsprintf(). In the case of wsprintf(), the
function has no way to determine beforehand how many parameters will be pushed
on the stack, so it cannot do the stack balancing.
STDCALL is the hybrid of C and PASCAL convention. It passes parameter from
right to left but the callee is responsible for stack balancing after the
call.Win32 platform use STDCALL exclusively. Except in one case: wsprintf(). You
must use C calling convention with wsprintf().
.DATA
.DATA?
.CONST
.CODE
All four directives are what's called section. You don't have segments in
Win32, remember? But you can divide your entire address space into logical
sections. The start of one section denotes the end of the previous section.
There'are two groups of section: data and code. Data sections are divided into 3
categories:
- .DATA This section contains initialized data of your
program.
- .DATA? This section contains uninitialized data of your program.
Sometimes you just want to preallocate some memory but don't want to
initialize it. This section is for that purpose. The advantage of
uninitialized data is: it doesn't take space in the executable file. For
example, if you allocate 10,000 bytes in your .DATA? section, your
executable is not bloated up 10,000 bytes. Its size stays much the same. You
only tell the assembler how much space you need when the program is loaded
into memory, that's all.
- .CONST This section contains declaration of constants used by
your program. Constants in this section can never be modified in your
program. They are just *constant*.
You don't have to use all three sections in your program. Declare only the
section(s) you want to use.
There's only one section for code: .CODE. This is where your codes reside.
<label>
end <label>
where <label> is any arbitrary label is used to specify the extent of
your code. Both labels must be identical. All your codes must reside
between <label> and end <label>
|