internal.doc
资源名称:nasm-0.98.zip [点击查看]
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上传日期:2007-01-08
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编译器/解释器
开发平台:
C/C++
- Internals of the Netwide Assembler
- ==================================
- The Netwide Assembler is intended to be a modular, re-usable x86
- assembler, which can be embedded in other programs, for example as
- the back end to a compiler.
- The assembler is composed of modules. The interfaces between them
- look like:
- +--- preproc.c ----+
- | |
- +---- parser.c ----+
- | | |
- | float.c |
- | |
- +--- assemble.c ---+
- | | |
- nasm.c ---+ insnsa.c +--- nasmlib.c
- | |
- +--- listing.c ----+
- | |
- +---- labels.c ----+
- | |
- +--- outform.c ----+
- | |
- +----- *out.c -----+
- In other words, each of `preproc.c', `parser.c', `assemble.c',
- `labels.c', `listing.c', `outform.c' and each of the output format
- modules `*out.c' are independent modules, which do not directly
- inter-communicate except through the main program.
- The Netwide *Disassembler* is not intended to be particularly
- portable or reusable or anything, however. So I won't bother
- documenting it here. :-)
- nasmlib.c
- ---------
- This is a library module; it contains simple library routines which
- may be referenced by all other modules. Among these are a set of
- wrappers around the standard `malloc' routines, which will report a
- fatal error if they run out of memory, rather than returning NULL.
- preproc.c
- ---------
- This contains a macro preprocessor, which takes a file name as input
- and returns a sequence of preprocessed source lines. The only symbol
- exported from the module is `nasmpp', which is a data structure of
- type `Preproc', declared in nasm.h. This structure contains pointers
- to all the functions designed to be callable from outside the
- module.
- parser.c
- --------
- This contains a source-line parser. It parses `canonical' assembly
- source lines, containing some combination of the `label', `opcode',
- `operand' and `comment' fields: it does not process directives or
- macros. It exports two functions: `parse_line' and `cleanup_insn'.
- `parse_line' is the main parser function: you pass it a source line
- in ASCII text form, and it returns you an `insn' structure
- containing all the details of the instruction on that line. The
- parameters it requires are:
- - The location (segment, offset) where the instruction on this line
- will eventually be placed. This is necessary in order to evaluate
- expressions containing the Here token, `$'.
- - A function which can be called to retrieve the value of any
- symbols the source line references.
- - Which pass the assembler is on: an undefined symbol only causes an
- error condition on pass two.
- - The source line to be parsed.
- - A structure to fill with the results of the parse.
- - A function which can be called to report errors.
- Some instructions (DB, DW, DD for example) can require an arbitrary
- amount of storage, and so some of the members of the resulting
- `insn' structure will be dynamically allocated. The other function
- exported by `parser.c' is `cleanup_insn', which can be called to
- deallocate any dynamic storage associated with the results of a
- parse.
- names.c
- -------
- This doesn't count as a module - it defines a few arrays which are
- shared between NASM and NDISASM, so it's a separate file which is
- #included by both parser.c and disasm.c.
- float.c
- -------
- This is essentially a library module: it exports one function,
- `float_const', which converts an ASCII representation of a
- floating-point number into an x86-compatible binary representation,
- without using any built-in floating-point arithmetic (so it will run
- on any platform, portably). It calls nothing, and is called only by
- `parser.c'. Note that the function `float_const' must be passed an
- error reporting routine.
- assemble.c
- ----------
- This module contains the code generator: it translates `insn'
- structures as returned from the parser module into actual generated
- code which can be placed in an output file. It exports two
- functions, `assemble' and `insn_size'.
- `insn_size' is designed to be called on pass one of assembly: it
- takes an `insn' structure as input, and returns the amount of space
- that would be taken up if the instruction described in the structure
- were to be converted to real machine code. `insn_size' also requires
- to be told the location (as a segment/offset pair) where the
- instruction would be assembled, the mode of assembly (16/32 bit
- default), and a function it can call to report errors.
- `assemble' is designed to be called on pass two: it takes all the
- parameters that `insn_size' does, but has an extra parameter which
- is an output driver. `assemble' actually converts the input
- instruction into machine code, and outputs the machine code by means
- of calling the `output' function of the driver.
- insnsa.c
- --------
- This is another library module: it exports one very big array of
- instruction translations. It has to be a separate module so that DOS
- compilers, with less memory to spare than typical Unix ones, can
- cope with it.
- labels.c
- --------
- This module contains a label manager. It exports six functions:
- `init_labels' should be called before any other function in the
- module. `cleanup_labels' may be called after all other use of the
- module has finished, to deallocate storage.
- `define_label' is called to define new labels: you pass it the name
- of the label to be defined, and the (segment,offset) pair giving the
- value of the label. It is also passed an error-reporting function,
- and an output driver structure (so that it can call the output
- driver's label-definition function). `define_label' mentally
- prepends the name of the most recently defined non-local label to
- any label beginning with a period.
- `define_label_stub' is designed to be called in pass two, once all
- the labels have already been defined: it does nothing except to
- update the "most-recently-defined-non-local-label" status, so that
- references to local labels in pass two will work correctly.
- `declare_as_global' is used to declare that a label should be
- global. It must be called _before_ the label in question is defined.
- Finally, `lookup_label' attempts to translate a label name into a
- (segment,offset) pair. It returns non-zero on success.
- The label manager module is (theoretically :) restartable: after
- calling `cleanup_labels', you can call `init_labels' again, and
- start a new assembly with a new set of symbols.
- listing.c
- ---------
- This file contains the listing file generator. The interface to the
- module is through the one symbol it exports, `nasmlist', which is a
- structure containing six function pointers. The calling semantics of
- these functions isn't terribly well thought out, as yet, but it
- works (just about) so it's going to get left alone for now...
- outform.c
- ---------
- This small module contains a set of routines to manage a list of
- output formats, and select one given a keyword. It contains three
- small routines: `ofmt_register' which registers an output driver as
- part of the managed list, `ofmt_list' which lists the available
- drivers on stdout, and `ofmt_find' which tries to find the driver
- corresponding to a given name.
- The output modules
- ------------------
- Each of the output modules, `outbin.o', `outelf.o' and so on,
- exports only one symbol, which is an output driver data structure
- containing pointers to all the functions needed to produce output
- files of the appropriate type.
- The exception to this is `outcoff.o', which exports _two_ output
- driver structures, since COFF and Win32 object file formats are very
- similar and most of the code is shared between them.
- nasm.c
- ------
- This is the main program: it calls all the functions in the above
- modules, and puts them together to form a working assembler. We
- hope. :-)
- Segment Mechanism
- -----------------
- In NASM, the term `segment' is used to separate the different
- sections/segments/groups of which an object file is composed.
- Essentially, every address NASM is capable of understanding is
- expressed as an offset from the beginning of some segment.
- The defining property of a segment is that if two symbols are
- declared in the same segment, then the distance between them is
- fixed at assembly time. Hence every externally-declared variable
- must be declared in its own segment, since none of the locations of
- these are known, and so no distances may be computed at assembly
- time.
- The special segment value NO_SEG (-1) is used to denote an absolute
- value, e.g. a constant whose value does not depend on relocation,
- such as the _size_ of a data object.
- Apart from NO_SEG, segment indices all have their least significant
- bit clear, if they refer to actual in-memory segments. For each
- segment of this type, there is an auxiliary segment value, defined
- to be the same number but with the LSB set, which denotes the
- segment-base value of that segment, for object formats which support
- it (Microsoft .OBJ, for example).
- Hence, if `textsym' is declared in a code segment with index 2, then
- referencing `SEG textsym' would return zero offset from
- segment-index 3. Or, in object formats which don't understand such
- references, it would return an error instead.
- The next twist is SEG_ABS. Some symbols may be declared with a
- segment value of SEG_ABS plus a 16-bit constant: this indicates that
- they are far-absolute symbols, such as the BIOS keyboard buffer
- under MS-DOS, which always resides at 0040h:001Eh. Far-absolutes are
- handled with care in the parser, since they are supposed to evaluate
- simply to their offset part within expressions, but applying SEG to
- one should yield its segment part. A far-absolute should never find
- its way _out_ of the parser, unless it is enclosed in a WRT clause,
- in which case Microsoft 16-bit object formats will want to know
- about it.
- Porting Issues
- --------------
- We have tried to write NASM in portable ANSI C: we do not assume
- little-endianness or any hardware characteristics (in order that
- NASM should work as a cross-assembler for x86 platforms, even when
- run on other, stranger machines).
- Assumptions we _have_ made are:
- - We assume that `short' is at least 16 bits, and `long' at least
- 32. This really _shouldn't_ be a problem, since Kernighan and
- Ritchie tell us we are entitled to do so.
- - We rely on having more than 6 characters of significance on
- externally linked symbols in the NASM sources. This may get fixed
- at some point. We haven't yet come across a linker brain-dead
- enough to get it wrong anyway.
- - We assume that `fopen' using the mode "wb" can be used to write
- binary data files. This may be wrong on systems like VMS, with a
- strange file system. Though why you'd want to run NASM on VMS is
- beyond me anyway.
- That's it. Subject to those caveats, NASM should be completely
- portable. If not, we _really_ want to know about it.
- Porting Non-Issues
- ------------------
- The following is _not_ a portability problem, although it looks like
- one.
- - When compiling with some versions of DJGPP, you may get errors
- such as `warning: ANSI C forbids braced-groups within
- expressions'. This isn't NASM's fault - the problem seems to be
- that DJGPP's definitions of the <ctype.h> macros include a
- GNU-specific C extension. So when compiling using -ansi and
- -pedantic, DJGPP complains about its own header files. It isn't a
- problem anyway, since it still generates correct code.