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Iwarez
August 20th, 2010, 15:11
Ok, I'm in the process of converting high level code to asm to speed up some operations on binary trees. Now I've come to some situation where the asm code I wrote is so stupid looking that I thought that there MUST be a way to do it better

What I have is this routine entry code:
Code:


Delete1ItemByPosition:



	%define snNodeData 	ebp + 8

	%define lStartIndex	ebp + 12	

	%define Item 		ebp + 16

	

	%define RebuildTreeFromIndex 	ebp - 4

	%define CurrentParentIndex 		ebp - 8

	%define bDone			ebp - 12

	%define ArrayPointer 		ebp - 16

	%define LastIndex			ebp - 20



	push ebp

	mov ebp, esp

	sub esp, 20


Now I want to push a local variable memory location for another function that wants some of it's variables as reference instead of value.

So for example the local variable 'LastIndex' I did this:
Code:


	mov ebx, ebp

	sub ebx, 20

	push ebx


The problem with that code is that
a) It doesn't clearly reference my local variable 'LastIndex'
b) It's 3 instructions

This code looks so stupid that I came here to ask for a better solution. I only learned asm from reversing so I hope I'm missing a very obvious instruction here...

I already looked through some dll's to find a similiar situation but I couldn't find one.

HELP!

Thanks in advance, I-Warez
Neitsa
August 20th, 2010, 16:32
Hi,

(As it seems that you're using nasm) This assembler has a way to define local variables through the %local directive:

http://www.nasm.us/doc/nasmdoc4.html#section-4.8.3

Sorry for not providing a better example than the manual as I'm not really a nasm expert.

Hope it helps.
Iwarez
August 21st, 2010, 05:01
Hi Neitsa,

Thanks for your link, but I'm afraid it won't answer my question. I did however show me a nice way to let nasm calculate the amount of stack space I need for local variables. Thanks for that!

Let me rephrase my question:
If you have a localvariable defined as ebp-8 you can access it from within your routine as mov eax, [LocalVar] and if you need to push the value of the variable for another routine you simple push the variable like push [LocalVar].

What if you want to push the memorylocation? push ebp-8 doesn't exists...

EDIT:
I just realized I could use this
Code:
lea ebx, [LocalVar]

push ebx


SOLVED!
Neitsa
August 21st, 2010, 05:51
I'm sorry I did not understand your question , I could have answered it earlier.

Yep, 'LEA' each time you want an address rather than a value. Glad you found it!
Iwarez
August 21st, 2010, 06:16
Well you helped me a lot with the %local compiler directive. That simplified my routine declaration a lot. Also it helped to get rid of the arguments defines by using the %arg directive. So I learned some more and it looks nicer too. Thanks!