In this lab, you will experiment with assembler on the x86_64 and aarch64 platforms.
Perform this lab on SPO600 Servers (you may use your own systems if they are of the right architecture and appropriately configured).
The code examples for this lab are available in the file /public/spo600-assembler-lab-examples.tgz on each of the SPO600 Servers.
Unpacking the archive in your home directory will produce the following directory structure:
spo600
└── examples
└── hello # "hello world" example programs
├── assembler
│ ├── aarch64 # aarch64 gas assembly language version
│ │ ├── hello.s
│ │ └── Makefile
│ ├── Makefile
│ └── x86_64 # x86_64 assembly language versions
│ ├── hello-gas.s # ... gas syntax
│ ├── hello-nasm.s # ... nasm syntax
│ └── Makefile
└── c # Portable C versions
├── hello2.c # ... using write()
├── hello3.c # ... using syscall()
├── hello.c # ... using printf()
└── Makefile
Reminder: to unpack a tar archive (.tar, .tar.gz, .tgz, or similar file), use the tar command with the x (extract) and f (archive filename) options; the v (verbose) option is also recommended: cd ~ ; tar xvf /public/spo600-assembler-lab-examples.tgz
Throughout this lab, take advantage of make whenever possible.
These steps were performed in the lecture class.
1. Build and run the C version(s) of the program for x86_64 and aarch64, using make. Take a look at the differences in the code.
2. Use the objdump -d command to dump (print) the object code (machine code) and disassemble it into assembler for each of the binaries. Find the <main> section and take a look at the code. Also notice the total amount of code.
3. Review, build, and and run the aarch64 assembly language program (on the aarch64 class server) using make, taking note of the commands that are executed to assemble and link the code. Verify that you can disassemble the object code in the ELF binary using objdump -d objectfile and take a look at the code.
4. Review, build, and run the x86_64 assembly language programs using make (on the x86 class server), taking note of the commands that are executed to assemble and link the code. Take a look at the code using objdump -d objectfile and compare it to the source code. Notice the absence of other code (compared to the C binary, which had a lot of extra code). Note also that there are two versions of the code, one written for the NASM assembler and one written for the GNU as assembler (aka “gas”). In this course we will be focused on gas.
The steps in the previous section were demonstrated in the class.
Perform these steps in your breakout group using the “mob programming” approach used in Lab 1:
0. Have the group driver share their screen, log into the aarch64 server, and unpack the archive (above).
1. Review, build, and run the aarch64 assembly language programs. Take a look at the code using objdump -d objectfile and compare it to the source code.
2. Here is a basic loop in AArch64 assembler - this loops from 0 to 9, using r19 as the index (loop control) counter:
.text
.globl _start
min = 0 /* starting value for the loop index; **note that this is a symbol (constant)**, not a variable */
max = 10 /* loop exits when the index hits this number (loop condition is i<max) */
_start:
mov x19, min
loop:
/* ... body of the loop ... do something useful here ... */
add x19, x19, 1 /* increment the loop counter */
cmp x19, max /* see if we've hit the max */
b.ne loop /* if not, then continue the loop */
mov x0, 0 /* set exit status to 0 */
mov x8, 93 /* exit is syscall #93 */
svc 0 /* invoke syscall */
This code doesn't actually do anything while looping, because the body of the loop is empty. On an AArch64 machine, combine this code with code from the “Hello World” assembley-language example, so that it prints a word each time it loops:
Loop Loop Loop Loop Loop Loop Loop Loop Loop Loop
Then modify the message so that it includes the loop index values, showing each digit from 0 to 9 like this:
Loop: 0 Loop: 1 Loop: 2 Loop: 3 Loop: 4 Loop: 5 Loop: 6 Loop: 7 Loop: 8 Loop: 9
Character conversion tip: In order to print the loop index value, you will need to convert from an integer to digit character. In ASCII/ISO-8859-1/Unicode UTF-8, the digit characters are in the range 48-57 (0x30-0x39). You will also need to assemble the message to be printed for each line - you can do this by writing the digit into the message buffer before outputting it to stdout, which is probably the best approach, or you can perform a sequence of writes for the thee parts of the message ('Loop: ', number, '\n'). You may want to refer to the manpage for ascii.
For reference, here is a 6502 implementation of this loop.
3. Extend the AArch64 code to loop from 00-30, printing each value as a 2-digit decimal number.
2-Digit Conversion tip: You will need to take the loop index and convert it into separate digits by dividing by 10; the quotient will be the first digit and the remainder will be the second digit. For example, if the loop index value is 25 in decimal, dividing by 10 will yield a quotient of 2 and a remainder of 5. You will then need to convert each digit into a character (using the same approach used in the single-digit loop). Read the description of the division instruction carefully. On x86_64, you need to set up specific registers before performing a division. On AArch64, you will need to use a second instruction to find the remainder after a division.
4. Change the code as needed to suppress the leading zero (printing 0-30 instead of 00-30). To do this, you'll need to add a conditional into your code (the equivalent of an “if” statement, implemented as a compare followed by a conditional branch or conditional jump).
5. Repeat the previous steps for x86_64.
For reference, here is the loop code in x86_64 assembler:
.text
.globl _start
min = 0 /* starting value for the loop index; **note that this is a symbol (constant)**, not a variable */
max = 10 /* loop exits when the index hits this number (loop condition is i<max) */
_start:
mov $min,%r15 /* loop index */
loop:
/* ... body of the loop ... do something useful here ... */
inc %r15 /* increment the loop index */
cmp $max,%r15 /* see if we've hit the max */
jne loop /* if not, then continue the loop */
mov $0,%rdi /* set exit status to 0 */
mov $60,%rax /* exit is syscall #60 */
syscall /* invoke syscall */
Note: The x86 division instruction is quite a bit different from the aarch64 division instructions. Read the documentation for the instructions (either in the quick start notes or the reference manual) carefully.
1. Complete the lab sections, above.
2. Blog about the programs you've written. Describe the experience of writing and debugging in assembler, as compared to writing in other languages. Contrast 6502, x86_64, aarch64 assembler, your experience with each, and your opinions of each. Include links to the source code for each of your assembler programs (Important: wherever possible, use text instead of screenshots, so that your code can be indexed, searched, and tested).
Write a program in aarch64 assembly language to print the times tables from 1-12 (“1 x 1 = 1” through “12 x 12 = 144”). Add a spacer between each table, and use a function/subroutine to format the numbers with leading-zero suppression.
The output could look something like this:
1 x 1 = 1 2 x 1 = 2 3 x 1 = 3 4 x 1 = 4 5 x 1 = 5 6 x 1 = 6 7 x 1 = 7 8 x 1 = 8 9 x 1 = 9 10 x 1 = 10 11 x 1 = 11 12 x 1 = 12 ------------- 1 x 2 = 2 2 x 2 = 4 3 x 2 = 6 4 x 2 = 8 5 x 2 = 10 ** ...lines snipped for space... ** 11 x 12 = 132 ------------- 1 x 12 = 12 2 x 12 = 24 3 x 12 = 36 4 x 12 = 48 5 x 12 = 60 6 x 12 = 72 7 x 12 = 84 8 x 12 = 96 9 x 12 = 108 10 x 12 = 120 11 x 12 = 132 12 x 12 = 144