CSC231 Print binary contents of DWord

--D. Thiebaut 09:45, 22 October 2012 (EDT)

---

Exercise

• Print the contents of a dword in binary.
• Use the skeleton below to get started:

;;; printBinary.asm
;;; D. Thiebaut
;;; prints a 32-bit number in binary.
;;;
;;; To assemble, link and run:
;;;	nasm -f elf printBinary.asm
;;;    gcc -m32 -o printBinary printBinary.o driver.c asm_io.o
;;;	./printBinary

%include "asm_io.inc"

        ;; -------------------------
        ;; data segment
        ;; -------------------------
        section .data
x	dd	0xff55aa11
	
        ;; -------------------------
        ;; code area
        ;; -------------------------
        section .text
        global  asm_main
asm_main:       

	mov	ebx, dword[x]	; number to print
	mov	ecx, 32		; # of bits
	
        ;; put your code below this line...


        ;; return to C program
	
        ret

Some Variations

• An neat trick to print 1 or 0 depending on the value of the bit shifted out (1 or 0) is to use the ADC instruction
• At some point you will need to store 0 in eax then add 1 to it if the bit shifted out is 1. You then have the choice between several ways of clearing eax:
  • mov eax, 0
  • xor eax, eax
• Figure out why xor eax, eax might be problematic...

One Possible Solution

;;; printBinary.asm
;;; D. Thiebaut
;;; prints a 32-bit number in binary.
;;;
;;; To assemble, link and run:
;;;	nasm -f elf printBinary.asm
;;;    gcc -m32 -o printBinary printBinary.o driver.c asm_io.o
;;;	./printBinary


%include "asm_io.inc"

        ;; -------------------------
        ;; data segment
        ;; -------------------------
        section .data
x	dd	0xff55aa11
	
        ;; -------------------------
        ;; code area
        ;; -------------------------
        section .text
        global  asm_main
asm_main:       
	mov	ebx, dword[x]	; number to print
	mov	ecx, 32		; # of bits
	
for:	shl	ebx, 1
 	mov	eax, 0		; eax <-- 0
;;; it's tempting to use the xor below to clear eax, but it won't work...
;;; Figure out why...
;;;	xor	eax, eax
	adc	eax, 0		; eax <-- 0 if no carry, 1 if carry
	call	print_int
	loop	for

	call	print_nl

        ;; return to C program
	
        ret