Re: Linux / NASM equivalent of Iczelion's Win32 assembly tut's

Frank Kotler wrote:


Herbert came back claiming this was "better readable":

/**********************************************************************************/
main()
{char name[80];
putstring ("Please tell me your name? ");
getstring (79,name);
putstring ("Hello, ");
putstring (name);
putstring ( "! Welcome to Linux Assembly!\n");
}

putstring(s) char *s;
{while (*s) putchar(*s++);}

getstring(i,s) int i; char *s;
{int j; for (j=0; j<i; j++) if ((*s++ = getchar())=='\n') {s--; break;} *s=0;}
/**********************************************************************************/

I claim that this is a "preconceived notion". Swahili is "more readable"
to a native Swahili speaker, I imagine. I don't doubt that this is
"readable" to a "C speaker". Only Rosario could love those last couple
lines, but the first part is pretty "readable", even to the "naive reader".

The "readabilty" was about "main" and not the subroutines "putstring/getstring".
To make the essential readable, you has to hide the unimportant in as less as
possible lines.

If I wanted to make the subroutines "readable for an assembly programmer",
I would have written:

main()
{char name[80];
putstring ("Please tell me your name? ");
getstring (79,name);
putstring ("Hello, ");
putstring (name);
putstring ( "! Welcome to Linux Assembly!\n");
}

putstring(text) char *text;
{int pos=0;

loop1:
if (text[pos]==0) return;
putchar(text[pos]);
pos=pos+1;
goto loop1;
}

getstring(max,name) int max; char *name;
{int pos=0;
char c;

loop2:
c=getchar();
if (c=='\n') {name[pos]=0; return;}
name[pos]=c;
pos=pos+1;
if (pos <= max) goto loop2;
name[pos]=0;
}



We can write macros that make asm "look more like C". I could do:

sys_write stdout, prompt, prompt_len
sys_read stdin, name, MAXNAME
mov [name_len], eax
sys_write stdout, greet, greet_len
sys_write stdout, name, dword [name_len]
sys_write stdout, coda, coda_len


Sure you can, but what sense does it make? If you want it to look like a
HLL, why don't you use a HLL?
.