Compile/run assembler in Linux?

Solution 1:

The GNU assembler is probably already installed on your system. Try man as to see full usage information. You can use as to compile individual files and ld to link if you really, really want to.

However, GCC makes a great front-end. It can assemble .s files for you. For example:

$ cat >hello.s <<"EOF"
.section .rodata             # read-only static data
.globl hello
hello:
  .string "Hello, world!"    # zero-terminated C string

.text
.global main
main:
    push    %rbp
    mov     %rsp,  %rbp                 # create a stack frame

    mov     $hello, %edi                # put the address of hello into RDI
    call    puts                        #  as the first arg for puts

    mov     $0,    %eax                 # return value = 0.  Normally xor %eax,%eax
    leave                               # tear down the stack frame
    ret                            # pop the return address off the stack into RIP
EOF
$ gcc hello.s -no-pie -o hello
$ ./hello
Hello, world!

The code above is x86-64. If you want to make a position-independent executable (PIE), you'd need lea hello(%rip), %rdi, and call puts@plt.

A non-PIE executable (position-dependent) can use 32-bit absolute addressing for static data, but a PIE should use RIP-relative LEA. (See also Difference between movq and movabsq in x86-64 neither movq nor movabsq are a good choice.)

If you wanted to write 32-bit code, the calling convention is different, and RIP-relative addressing isn't available. (So you'd push $hello before the call, and pop the stack args after.)

You can also compile C/C++ code directly to assembly if you're curious how something works:

$ cat >hello.c <<EOF
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void) {
    printf("Hello, world!\n");
    return 0;
}
EOF
$ gcc -S hello.c -o hello.s

See also How to remove "noise" from GCC/clang assembly output? for more about looking at compiler output, and writing useful small functions that will compile to interesting output.

Solution 2:

The GNU assembler (gas) and NASM are both good choices. However, they have some differences, the big one being the order you put operations and their operands.

gas uses AT&T syntax (guide: https://stackoverflow.com/tags/att/info):

mnemonic    source, destination

nasm uses Intel style (guide: https://stackoverflow.com/tags/intel-syntax/info):

mnemonic    destination, source

Either one will probably do what you need. GAS also has an Intel-syntax mode, which is a lot like MASM, not NASM.

Try out this tutorial: http://asm.sourceforge.net/intro/Assembly-Intro.html

See also more links to guides and docs in Stack Overflow's x86 tag wiki

Solution 3:

If you are using NASM, the command-line is just

nasm -felf32 -g -Fdwarf file.asm -o file.o

where 'file.asm' is your assembly file (code) and 'file.o' is an object file you can link with gcc -m32 or ld -melf_i386. (Assembling with nasm -felf64 will make a 64-bit object file, but the hello world example below uses 32-bit system calls, and won't work in a PIE executable.)

Here is some more info:

http://www.nasm.us/doc/nasmdoc2.html#section-2.1

You can install NASM in Ubuntu with the following command:

apt-get install nasm

Here is a basic Hello World in Linux assembly to whet your appetite:

http://web.archive.org/web/20120822144129/http://www.cin.ufpe.br/~if817/arquivos/asmtut/index.html

I hope this is what you were asking...

Compile/run assembler in Linux?

Solution 1:

Solution 2:

Solution 3:

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