I wanted to write something basic in assembly under Windows, I'm using NASM, but I can't get anything working.
How to write and compile hello world without the help of C functions on Windows?
I wanted to write something basic in assembly under Windows, I'm using NASM, but I can't get anything working.
How to write and compile hello world without the help of C functions on Windows?
; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ; helloworld.asm ; ; This is a Win32 console program that writes "Hello, World" on one line and ; then exits. It needs to be linked with a C library. ; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- global _main extern _printf section .text _main: push message call _printf add esp, 4 ret message: db 'Hello, World', 10, 0
Then run
nasm -fwin32 helloworld.asm gcc helloworld.obj a
There's also The Clueless Newbies Guide to Hello World in Nasm without the use of a C library. Then the code would look like this.
org 100h mov dx,msg mov ah,9 int 21h mov ah,4Ch int 21h msg db 'Hello, World!',0Dh,0Ah,'$'
Good luck.
This example shows how to go directly to the Windows API and not link in the C Standard Library.
global _main extern _GetStdHandle@4 extern _WriteFile@20 extern _ExitProcess@4 section .text _main: ; DWORD bytes; mov ebp, esp sub esp, 4 ; hStdOut = GetstdHandle( STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE) push -11 call _GetStdHandle@4 mov ebx, eax ; WriteFile( hstdOut, message, length(message), &bytes, 0); push 0 lea eax, [ebp-4] push eax push (message_end - message) push message push ebx call _WriteFile@20 ; ExitProcess(0) push 0 call _ExitProcess@4 ; never here hlt message: db 'Hello, World', 10 message_end:
To compile, you'll need NASM and LINK.EXE (from Visual studio Standard Edition)
nasm -fwin32 hello.asm link /subsystem:console /nodefaultlib /entry:main hello.obj
These are Win32 and Win64 examples using Windows API calls. They are for MASM rather than NASM, but have a look at them. You can find more details in this article.
;---ASM Hello World Win32 MessageBox .386 .model flat, stdcall include kernel32.inc includelib kernel32.lib include user32.inc includelib user32.lib .data title db 'Win32', 0 msg db 'Hello World', 0 .code Main: push 0 ; uType = MB_OK push offset title ; LPCSTR lpCaption push offset msg ; LPCSTR lpText push 0 ; hWnd = HWND_DESKTOP call MessageBoxA push eax ; uExitCode = MessageBox(...) call ExitProcess End Main ;---ASM Hello World Win64 MessageBox extrn MessageBoxA: PROC extrn ExitProcess: PROC .data title db 'Win64', 0 msg db 'Hello World!', 0 .code main proc sub rsp, 28h mov rcx, 0 ; hWnd = HWND_DESKTOP lea rdx, msg ; LPCSTR lpText lea r8, title ; LPCSTR lpCaption mov r9d, 0 ; uType = MB_OK call MessageBoxA add rsp, 28h mov ecx, eax ; uExitCode = MessageBox(...) call ExitProcess main endp End
To assemble and link these using MASM, use this for 32-bit executable:
ml.exe [filename] /link /subsystem:windows /defaultlib:kernel32.lib /defaultlib:user32.lib /entry:Main
or this for 64-bit executable:
ml64.exe [filename] /link /subsystem:windows /defaultlib:kernel32.lib /defaultlib:user32.lib /entry:main
Flat Assembler does not need an extra linker. This makes assembler programming quite easy. It is also available for Linux.
This is hello.asm
from the Fasm examples:
include 'win32ax.inc' .code start: invoke MessageBox,HWND_DESKTOP,"Hi! I'm the example program!",invoke GetCommandLine,MB_OK invoke ExitProcess,0 .end start
Fasm creates an executable:
>fasm hello.asm flat assembler version 1.70.03 (1048575 kilobytes memory) 4 passes, 1536 bytes.
And this is the program in IDA:
You can see the three calls: GetCommandLine
, MessageBox
and ExitProcess
.
To get an .exe with NASM'compiler and Visual Studio's linker this code works fine:
global WinMain extern ExitProcess ; external functions in system libraries extern MessageBoxA section .data title: db 'Win64', 0 msg: db 'Hello world!', 0 section .text WinMain: sub rsp, 28h mov rcx, 0 ; hWnd = HWND_DESKTOP lea rdx,[msg] ; LPCSTR lpText lea r8,[title] ; LPCSTR lpCaption mov r9d, 0 ; uType = MB_OK call MessageBoxA add rsp, 28h mov ecx,eax call ExitProcess hlt ; never here
If this code is saved on e.g. "test64.asm", then to compile:
nasm -f win64 test64.asm
Produces "test64.obj" Then to link from command prompt:
path_to_link\link.exe test64.obj /subsystem:windows /entry:WinMain /libpath:path_to_libs /nodefaultlib kernel32.lib user32.lib /largeaddressaware:no
where path_to_link could be C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\bin or wherever is your link.exe program in your machine, path_to_libs could be C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Lib\winv6.3\um\x64 or wherever are your libraries (in this case both kernel32.lib and user32.lib are on the same place, otherwise use one option for each path you need) and the /largeaddressaware:no option is necessary to avoid linker's complain about addresses to long (for user32.lib in this case). Also, as it is done here, if Visual's linker is invoked from command prompt, it is necessary to setup the environment previously (run once vcvarsall.bat and/or see MS C++ 2010 and mspdb100.dll).
Unless you call some function this is not at all trivial. (And, seriously, there's no real difference in complexity between calling printf and calling a win32 api function.)
Even DOS int 21h is really just a function call, even if its a different API.
If you want to do it without help you need to talk to your video hardware directly, likely writing bitmaps of the letters of "Hello world" into a framebuffer. Even then the video card is doing the work of translating those memory values into VGA/DVI signals.
Note that, really, none of this stuff all the way down to the hardware is any more interesting in ASM than in C. A "hello world" program boils down to a function call. One nice thing about ASM is that you can use any ABI you want fairly easy; you just need to know what that ABI is.
If you want to use NASM and Visual Studio's linker (link.exe) with anderstornvig's Hello World example you will have to manually link with the C Runtime Libary that contains the printf() function.
nasm -fwin32 helloworld.asm link.exe helloworld.obj libcmt.lib
Hope this helps someone.
The best examples are those with fasm, because fasm doesn't use a linker, which hides the complexity of windows programming by another opaque layer of complexity. If you're content with a program that writes into a gui window, then there is an example for that in fasm's example directory.
If you want a console program, that allows redirection of standard in and standard out that is also possible. There is a (helas highly non-trivial) example program available that doesn't use a gui, and works strictly with the console, that is fasm itself. This can be thinned out to the essentials. (I've written a forth compiler which is another non-gui example, but it is also non-trivial).
Such a program has the following command to generate a proper executable header, normally done by a linker.
FORMAT PE CONSOLE
A section called '.idata' contains a table that helps windows during startup to couple names of functions to the runtimes addresses. It also contains a reference to KERNEL.DLL which is the Windows Operating System.
section '.idata' import data readable writeable ...
Your program is in section '.text'. If you declare that section readable writeable and executable, it is the only section you need.
section '.text' code executable readable writable
You can call all the facilities you declared in the .idata section. For a console program you need _GetStdHandle to find he filedescriptors for standard in and standardout (using symbolic names like STD_INPUT_HANDLE which fasm finds in the include file win32a.inc). Once you have the file descriptors you can do WriteFile and ReadFile. All functions are described in the kernel32 documentation. You are probably aware of that or you wouldn't try assembler programming.
In summary: There is a table with asci names that couple to the windows OS. During startup this is transformed into a table of callable addresses, which you use in your program.