Writing Functions with Inline Assembly

 

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Microsoft Specific
If you write a function with inline assembly code, it's easy to pass arguments to the function and return a value from it. The following examples compare a function first written for a separate assembler and then rewritten for the inline assembler. The function, called power2, receives two parameters, multiplying the first parameter by 2 to the power of the second parameter. Written for a separate assembler, the function might look like this:

; POWER.ASM  
; Compute the power of an integer  
;  
       PUBLIC _power2  
_TEXT SEGMENT WORD PUBLIC 'CODE'  
_power2 PROC  
  
        push ebp        ; Save EBP  
        mov ebp, esp    ; Move ESP into EBP so we can refer  
                        ;   to arguments on the stack  
        mov eax, [ebp+4] ; Get first argument  
        mov ecx, [ebp+6] ; Get second argument  
        shl eax, cl     ; EAX = EAX * ( 2 ^ CL )  
        pop ebp         ; Restore EBP  
        ret             ; Return with sum in EAX  
  
_power2 ENDP  
_TEXT   ENDS  
        END  

Since it's written for a separate assembler, the function requires a separate source file and assembly and link steps. C and C++ function arguments are usually passed on the stack, so this version of the power2 function accesses its arguments by their positions on the stack. (Note that the MODEL directive, available in MASM and some other assemblers, also allows you to access stack arguments and local stack variables by name.)

Example

This program writes the power2 function with inline assembly code:

// Power2_inline_asm.c  
// compile with: /EHsc  
// processor: x86  
  
#include <stdio.h>  
  
int power2( int num, int power );  
  
int main( void )  
{  
    printf_s( "3 times 2 to the power of 5 is %d\n", \  
              power2( 3, 5) );  
}  
int power2( int num, int power )  
{  
   __asm  
   {  
      mov eax, num    ; Get first argument  
      mov ecx, power  ; Get second argument  
      shl eax, cl     ; EAX = EAX * ( 2 to the power of CL )  
   }  
   // Return with result in EAX  
}  

The inline version of the power2 function refers to its arguments by name and appears in the same source file as the rest of the program. This version also requires fewer assembly instructions.

Because the inline version of power2 doesn't execute a C return statement, it causes a harmless warning if you compile at warning level 2 or higher. The function does return a value, but the compiler cannot tell that in the absence of a return statement. You can use #pragma warning to disable the generation of this warning.

END Microsoft Specific

See Also

Using C or C++ in __asm Blocks