School of Design, Engineering & Computing

BSc (Hons) Computing BSc (Hons) Software Engineering Management

ARM: Assembly Language Programming

Peter Knaggs Stephen Welsh

and

August 31, 2004

Contents

Contents List of Programs Preface 1 Introduction

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 The Meaning of Instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.1 Binary Instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Computer Program

i vii ix 1
1 1 1 2 2 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 8 8 8 8 8 8

The Binary Programming Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Using Octal or Hexadecimal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Instruction Code Mnemonics 1.6.1 1.6.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Assembler Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Additional Features of Assemblers Choosing an Assembler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1.7 1.8

Disadvantages of Assembly Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . High-Level Languages 1.8.1 1.8.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Advantages of High-Level Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Disadvantages of High-Level Languages

1.9

Which Level Should You Use? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.9.1 1.9.2 1.9.3 1.9.4 Applications for Machine Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Applications for Assembly Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Applications for High-Level Language Other Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1.10 Why Learn Assembler? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2 Assemblers
2.1 Fields 2.1.1 2.1.2 2.2 2.3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Delimiters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

11
11 11 12 14 14 14 15 16 17 17 17 18 18 18 18

Operation Codes (Mnemonics) Directives 2.3.1 2.3.2 2.3.3 2.3.4 2.3.5

The DEFINE CONSTANT (Data) Directive

The EQUATE Directive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The AREA Directive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Housekeeping Directives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . When to Use Labels Decimal Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2.4

Operands and Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.1 2.4.2 2.4.3 2.4.4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Other Number Systems Character Codes

Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

ii

CONTENTS
2.4.5 2.4.6 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Arithmetic and Logical Expressions General Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 19 19 20 20 21

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Types of Assemblers Errors Loaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3 ARM Architecture
3.1 3.2 Processor modes 3.2.1 3.2.2 3.2.3 3.2.4 3.3 3.4 3.5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Registers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The stack pointer, The The

23
23 25 26 27 27 28 28 29 30 31 32 34

SP or R13 . . Link Register, LR or R14 . . program counter, PC or R15

Current Processor Status Registers:

CPSR

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Flags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Exceptions 3.5.1 3.5.2 3.5.3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Instruction Set

Conditional Execution:

cc

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Data Processing Operands: Memory Access Operands:

op1 op2

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4 Instruction Set
4.0.4 4.0.5 4.0.6 4.0.7 4.0.8 4.0.9 Branch instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Data-processing instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Status register transfer instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Load and store instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Coprocessor instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Exception-generating instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

37
38 38 39 40 41 41 42

4.0.10 Conditional Execution:

cc

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5 Addressing Modes
5.1 Data Processing Operands: 5.1.1 5.1.2 5.1.3 5.1.4 5.1.5 5.1.6 5.2 5.2.1 5.2.2 5.2.3 Unmodied Value

op1

45
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 45 45 46 46 46 47 47 48 49 49

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Logical Shift Left . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Logical Shift Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Arithmetic Shift Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rotate Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rotate Right Extended

Memory Access Operands:

op2

Oset Addressing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pre-Index Addressing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Post-Index Addressing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

6 Programs
6.1 Example Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1.1 6.1.2 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 Program Listing Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Guidelines for Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

51
51 51 51 52 53 54 55 55 55

Trying the examples 6.3.1

Trying the examples from the command line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Setting up TextPad Program Initialization Special Conditions Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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iii

7 Data Movement
7.1 Program Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1.1 7.1.2 7.1.3 7.1.4 7.1.5 7.1.6 7.1.7 7.1.8 7.2 7.2.1 7.2.2 7.2.3 7.2.4 7.2.5 7.2.6 7.2.7 16-Bit Data Transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . One's Complement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32-Bit Addition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shift Left One Bit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Byte Disassembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Find Larger of Two Numbers 64-Bit Adition Table of Factorials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

57
57 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 65 65 65 66 66 66 66

Problems

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

64-Bit Data Transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32-Bit Subtraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shift Right Three Bits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Halfword Assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Find Smallest of Three Numbers Shift Left . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sum of Squares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

bits

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

8 Logic 9 Program Loops

9.1 Program Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.1.1 9.1.2 9.1.3 9.1.4 9.2 9.2.1 9.2.2 9.2.3 9.2.4 9.2.5 Sum of numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Number of negative elements Find Maximum Value Normalize A Binary Number Checksum of data

69 71
72 72 73 75 75 76 76 77 77 77 77

Problems

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Number of Zero, Positive, and Negative numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Find Minimum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Count 1 Bits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Find element with most 1 bits

10 Strings
10.1 Handling data in ASCII 10.2 A string of characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.2.1 Fixed Length Strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.2.2 Terminated Strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.2.3 Counted Strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.3 International Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.4 Program Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.4.1 Length of a String of Characters 10.4.2 Find First Non-Blank Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

79
79 80 81 81 82 82 82 82 84 84 85 86 88 88 88 88 89 89

10.4.3 Replace Leading Zeros with Blanks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.4.4 Add Even Parity to ASCII Chatacters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.4.5 Pattern Match 10.5 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

10.5.1 Length of a Teletypewriter Message

10.5.2 Find Last Non-Blank Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.5.3 Truncate Decimal String to Integer Form 10.5.4 Check Even Parity and ASCII Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.5.5 String Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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CONTENTS

11 Code Conversion
11.1 Program Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1.1 Hexadecimal to ASCII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1.2 Decimal to Seven-Segment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1.3 ASCII to Decimal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1.4 Binary-Coded Decimal to Binary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1.5 Binary Number to ASCII String 11.2 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

91
91 91 92 93 94 95 96 96 96 96 97 97 97

11.2.1 ASCII to Hexadecimal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2.2 Seven-Segment to Decimal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2.3 Decimal to ASCII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2.4 Binary to Binary-Coded-Decimal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2.5 Packed Binary-Coded-Decimal to Binary String . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2.6 ASCII string to Binary number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

12 Arithmetic
12.1 Program Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.1.2 64-Bit Addition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.1.3 Decimal Addition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.1.4 Multiplication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.1.5 32-Bit Binary Divide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.2 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.2.1 Multiple precision Binary subtraction 12.2.3 32-Bit by 32-Bit Multiply

99
99 99 100 101 102 103 103 103 104

12.2.2 Decimal Subtraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

13 Tables and Lists

13.1 Program Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1.1 Add Entry to List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1.2 Check an Ordered List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1.3 Remove an Element from a Queue 13.1.4 Sort a List 13.2 Problems 13.1.5 Using an Ordered Jump Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

105
105 105 106 107 108 109 109 109 109 109 110 110

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

13.2.1 Remove Entry from List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.2 Add Entry to Ordered List 13.2.3 Add Element to Queue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.4 4-Byte Sort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.5 Using a Jump Table with a Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

14 The Stack 15 Subroutines

15.1 Types of Subroutines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.2 Subroutine Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.3 Parameter Passing Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.3.1 Passing Parameters In Registers 15.3.3 Passing Parameters On The Stack 15.3.2 Passing Parameters In A Parameter Block . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.4 Types Of Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.5 Program Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.6 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.6.1 ASCII Hex to Binary

111 113
113 114 114 114 115 115 116 116 123 123 123

15.6.2 ASCII Hex String to Binary Word

CONTENTS
15.6.3 Test for Alphabetic Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.6.4 Scan to Next Non-alphabetic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.6.5 Check Even Parity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.6.6 Check the Checksum of a String 15.6.7 Compare Two Counted Strings

123 123 124 124 124

16 Interrupts and Exceptions A ARM Instruction Denitions

A.1 A.2 A.3 A.4 A.5 A.6 A.7 A.8 A.9 ADC: Add with Carry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ADD: Add . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AND: Bitwise AND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B, BL: Branch, Branch and Link EOR: Exclusive OR LDR: Load Register

125 127
127 128 128 129 129 130 130 131 131 131 132 132 133 133 134 134 135 135 136 136

CMP: Compare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LDM: Load Multiple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LDRB: Load Register Byte

A.10 MOV: Move . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A.11 MVN: Move Negative A.12 ORR: Bitwise OR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A.13 SBC: Subtract with Carry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A.14 STM: Store Multiple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A.15 STR: Store Register A.17 SUB: Subtract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A.16 STRB: Store Register Byte

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A.18 SWI: Software Interrupt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A.19 SWP: Swap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A.20 SWPB: Swap Byte . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

B ARM Instruction Summary

139

vi

CONTENTS

List of Programs

7.1 7.2 7.3a 7.3b 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8

move16.s invert.s add.s add2.s shiftleft.s nibble.s bigger.s add64.s factorial.s bigger.s add64.s factorial.s sum16.s sum16b.s countneg.s countneg16.s largest16.s normalize.s strlencr.s skipblanks.s padzeros.s setparity.s

16bit data transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Find the one's compliment (inverse) of a number . . . . . . . . . . . . Add two numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Add two numbers and store the result . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shift Left one bit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Disassemble a byte into its high and low order nibbles . . . . . . . . . Find the larger of two numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 bit addition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lookup the factorial from a table by using the address of the memory location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

57 58 59 59 60 61 62 63 64 69 69 70 72 72 73 74 75 75 82 83 84 84 85 86

8.7a 8.7a 8.7a

Find the larger of two numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 bit addition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lookup the factorial from a table by using the address of the memory location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

9.1a 9.1b 9.2a 9.2b 9.3 9.4 10.1a 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5a

Add a series of 16 bit numbers by using a table address . . . . . . . . Add a series of 16 bit numbers by using a table address look-up Scan a series of 32 bit numbers to nd how many are negative Scan a series of 16 bit numbers to nd how many are negative Scan a series of 16 bit numbers to nd the largest . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . .

Normalize a binary number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Find the length of a Carage Return terminated string . . . . . . . . . Find the length of a null terminated string Supress leading zeros in a string . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Find rst non-blank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Set the parity bit on a series of characters store the amended string in Result . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Compare two counted strings for equality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Compare null terminated strings for equality assume that we have no

10.1b strlen.s

cstrcmp.s 10.5b strcmp.s

11.1a

knowledge of the data structure so we must assess the individual strings 87

11.1b wordtohex.s 11.2

nibtohex.s

Convert a single hex digit to its ASCII equivalent

. . . . . . . . . . .

91 92 92 93 94 94 95 99

Convert a 32 bit hexadecimal number to an ASCII string and output to the terminal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

nibtoseg.s Convert a decimal number to seven segment binary . . . . . . 11.3 dectonib.s Convert an ASCII numeric character to decimal . . . . . . . . 11.4a ubcdtohalf.s Convert an unpacked BCD number to binary . . . . . . . . . . 11.4b ubcdtohalf2.s Convert an unpacked BCD number to binary using MUL . . . 11.5 halftobin.s Store a 16bit binary number as an ASCII string of '0's and '1's
12.2

add64.s

64 Bit Addition

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

vii

viii

LIST OF PROGRAMS
Add two packed BCD numbers to give a packed BCD result . . . . . 100 101

12.3

addbcd.s mul16.s 12.4b mul32.s 12.5 divide.s

12.4a 13.1a

16 bit binary multiplication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Divide a 32 bit binary no by a 16 bit binary no store the quotient and remainder there is no 'DIV' instruction in ARM! . . . . . . . . . . . .

Multiply two 32 bit number to give a 64 bit result (corrupts R0 and R1)101 102

insert.s

Examine a table for a match - store a new entry at the end if no match found . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 106 106 107 108 116 117 117 118 118 119 121 122 Examine a table for a match - store a new entry if no match found extends insert.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Examine an ordered table for a match . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Remove the rst element of a queue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sort a list of values  simple bubble sort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Initiate a simple stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Initiate a simple stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Initiate a simple stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Initiate a simple stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A simple subroutine example program passes a variable to the routine in a register . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A more complex subroutine example program passes variables to the routine using the stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A 64 bit addition subroutine

13.1b insert2.s 13.2 13.3 13.4 15.1a 15.1c

search.s head.s sort.s init1.s

15.1b init2.s

init3.s 15.1d init3a.s 15.1e byreg.s

15.1f 15.1g

bystack.s

add64.s 15.1h factorial.s

A subroutine to nd the factorial of a number

Preface

Broadly speaking, you can divide the history of computers into four periods: the mainframe, the mini, the microprocessor, and the modern post-microprocessor. The

mainframe

era was charac-

terized by computers that required large buildings and teams of technicians and operators to keep them going. More often than not, both academics and students had little direct contact with the mainframeyou handed a deck of punched cards to an operator and waited for the output to appear hours later. During the mainfame era, academics concentrated on languages and compilers, algorithms, and operating systems. The

minicomputer

era put computers in the hands of students and academics, because university As minicomputers were not as complex as main-

departments could now buy their own minis.

frames and because students could get direct hands-on experience, many departments of computer science and electronic engineering taught students how to program in the native language of the computerassembly language. In those days, the mid 1970s, assembly language programming was used to teach both the control of I/O devices, and the writing of programs (i.e., assembly language was taught rather like high level languages). The explosion of computer software had not taken place, and if you wanted software you had to write it yourself. The late 1970s saw the introduction of the

microprocessor.

For the rst time, each student was

able to access a real computer. Unfortunately, microprocessors appeared before the introduction of low-cost memory (both primary and secondary). capacity to hold a simple single-pass assembler. The advent of the low-cost microprocessor system (usually on a single board) ensured that virtually every student took a course on assembly language. Even today, most courses in computer science include a module on computer architecture and organization, and teaching students to write programs in assembly language forces them to understand the computer's architecture. However, some computer scientists who had been educated during the mainframe era were unhappy with the microprocessor, because they felt that the 8-bit microprocessor was a retrograde stepits architecture was far more primitive than the mainframes they had studied in the 1960s. The 1990s is the Students had to program microprocessors in assembly language because the only storage mechanism was often a ROM with just enough

post-microprocessor

era.

Today's personal computers have more power and Moreover, the computer science curriculum of the

storage capacity than many of yesterday's mainframes, and they have a range of powerful software tools that were undreamed of in the 1970s. 1990s has exploded. In 1970 a student could be expected to be familiar with all eld of computer science. Today, a student can be expected only to browse through the highlights. The availability of high-performance hardware and the drive to include more and more new material in the curriculum, has put pressure on academics to justify what they teach. In particular, many are questioning the need for courses on assembly language. If you regard computer science as being primarily concerned with the

use

of the computer, you

can argue that assembly language is an irrelevance. Does the surgeon study metallurgy in order to understand how a scalpel operates? Does the pilot study thermodynamics to understand how a jet engine operates? Does the news reader study electronics to understand how the camera

ix

PREFACE

operates? The answer to all these questions is  no . So why should we inict assembly language and computer architecture on the student? First,

education

is not the same as and the

training.

The student of computer science is not simply being A university course leading to a degree should for the subject. Without a knowledge of computer

trained to use a number of computer packages. also cover the

history

theoretical basis

architecture, the computer scientist cannot understand how computers have developed and what they are capable of.

Is assembly language today the same as assembly language yesterday?

Two factors have inuenced the way in which we teach assembly languageone is the way in which microprocessors have changed, and the other is the use to which assembly language teaching is put. Over the years microprocessors have become more and more complex, with the result that the architecture and assembly language of a modern state-of-the-art microprocessor is radically dierent to that of an 8-bit machine of the late 1970s. When we rst taught assembly language in the 1970s and early 1980s, we did it to demonstrate how computers operated and to give students hands-on experience of a computer. Since all students either have their own computer or have access to a computer lab, this role of the single-board computer is now obsolete. Moreover, assembly language programming once attempted to ape high-level language programming students were taught algorithms such as sorting and searching in assembly language, as if assembly language were no more than the (desperately) poor person's C. The argument for teaching assembly language programming today can be divided into two components: the underpinning of computer architecture and the underpinning of computer software. Assembly language teaches how a computer works at the machine (i.e., register) level. It is therefore necessary to teach assembly language to all those who might later be involved in computer architectureeither by specifying computers for a particular application, or by designing new architectures. Moreover, the von Neumann machine's sequential nature teaches students the limitation of conventional architectures and, indirectly, leads them on to unconventional architectures (parallel processors, Harvard architectures, data ow computers, and even neural networks). It is probably in the realm of software that you can most easily build a case for the teaching of assembly language. During a student's career, he or she will encounter a lot of

abstract

concepts in

subjects ranging from programming languages, to operating systems, to real-time programming, to AI. The foundation of many of these concepts lies in assembly language programming and computer architecture. You might even say that assembly language provides for the

top-down

bottom-up

support

methodology we teach in high-level languages. Consider some of the following

examples (taken from the teaching of Advanced RISC Machines Ltd (ARM) assembly language).

Data types
Students come across data types in high-level languages and the eects of strong and weak data typing. Teaching an assembly language that can operate on bit, byte, word and long word operands helps students understand data types. Moreover, the ability to perform any type of assembly language operation on any type of data structure demonstrates the need for strong typing.

Addressing modes
A vital component of assembly language teaching is addressing modes (literal, direct, and indirect). The student learns how pointers function and how pointers are manipulated. This aspect is particularly important if the student is to become a C programmer. Because an assembly language is unencumbered by data types, the students' view of pointers is much simplied by an assembly language. The ARM has complex addressing modes that support direct and indirect addressing, generated jump tables and handling of unknown memory osets.

PREFACE

xi

The stack and subroutines

How procedures are called, and parameters passed and returned from procedures. By using an assembly language you can readily teach the passing of parameters by

reference.

The use of

local variables

and

re-entrant

value

and by

programming can also be taught. This

supports the teaching of task switching kernels in both operating systems and real-time programming.

Recursion
The recursive calling of subroutines often causes a student problems. You can use an assembly language, together with a suitable system with a tracing facility, to demonstrate how recursion operates. The student can actually observe how the stack grows as procedures are called.

Run-time support for high-level languages

A high-performance processor like the ARM provides facilities that support run-time checking in high-level languages. For example, the programming techniques document lists a series of programs that interface with 'C' and provide run-time checking for errors such as an attempt to divide a number by zero.

Protected-mode operation
Members of the ARM family operate in either a

priviledge mode secure

or

or a

user mode.

The

operating system operates in the priviledge mode and all user (applications) programs run in the user mode. This mechanism can be used to construct system (or other applications).

protected

environments in

which the eects of an error in one application can be prevented from harming the operating

Input-output
Many high-level languages make it dicult to access I/O ports and devices directly. By using an assembly language we can teach students how to write device drivers and how to control interfaces. Most real interfaces are still programmed at the machine level by accessing registers within them.

All these topics can, of course, be taught in the appropriate courses (e.g., high-level languages, operating systems). However, by teaching them in an assembly language course, they pave the way for future studies, and also show the student exactly what is happening within the machine.

Conclusion
A strong case can be made for the continued teaching of assembly language within the computer science curriculum. However, an assembly language cannot be taught just as if it were another general-purpose programming language as it was once taught ten years ago. Perhaps more than any other component of the computer science curriculum, teaching an assembly language supports a wide range of topics at the heart of computer science. An assembly language should not be used just to illustrate algorithms, but to demonstrate what is actually happening inside the computer.

xii

PREFACE

Introduction

A computer program is ultimately a series of numbers and therefore has very little meaning to a human being. In this chapter we will discuss the levels of human-like language in which a computer program may be expressed. We will also discuss the reasons for and uses of assembly language.

1.1

The Meaning of Instructions

The instruction set of a microprocessor is the set of binary inputs that produce dened actions during an instruction cycle. An instruction set is to a microprocessor what a function table is to a logic device such as a gate, adder, or shift register. Of course, the actions that the microprocessor performs in response to its instruction inputs are far more complex than the actions that logic devices perform in response to their inputs.

1.1.1 Binary Instructions

An instruction is a binary digit pattern  it must be available at the data inputs to the microprocessor at the proper time in order to be interpreted as an instruction. For example, when the ARM receives the binary pattern bit pattern

111000000100

as the input during an instruction fetch operation, the

pattern means subtract. Similary the microinstruction

11100000010011101100000000001111
 Subtract

111000001000

means add. Thus the 32

means:

R15 from R14 and put the answer in R12. 

The microprocessor (like any other computer) only recognises binary patterns as instructions or data; it does not recognise characters or octal, decimal, or hexadecimal numbers.

1.2

A Computer Program

A program is a series of instructions that causes a computer to perform a particular task. Actually, a computer program includes more than instructions, it also contains the data and the memory addresses that the microprocessor needs to accomplish the tasks dened by the instructions. Clearly, if the microprocessor is to perform an addition, it must have two numbers to add and a place to put the result. The computer program must determine the sources of the data and the destination of the result as well as the operation to be performed. All microprocessors execute instructions sequentially unless an instruction changes the order of execution or halts the processor. That is, the processor gets its next instruction from the next higher memory address unless the current instruction specically directs it to do otherwise. Ultimately, every program is a set of binary numbers. For example, this is a snippet of an ARM program that adds the contents of memory locations memory location

809432

and

809832

and places the result in

809C32 :
1

CHAPTER 1.

INTRODUCTION

11100101100111110001000000010000 11100101100111110001000000001000 11100000100000010101000000000000 11100101100011110101000000001000

This is a machine language, or object, program. If this program were entered into the memory of an ARM-based microcomputer, the microcomputer would be able to execute it directly.

1.3

The Binary Programming Problem

There are many diculties associated with creating programs as object, or binary machine language, programs. These are some of the problems:

The programs are dicult to understand or debug.

(Binary numbers all look the same,

particularly after you have looked at them for a few hours.) The programs do not describe the task which you want the computer to perform in anything resembling a human-readable format. The programs are long and tiresome to write. The programmer often makes careless errors that are very dicult to locate and correct.

For example, the following version of the addition object program contains a single bit error. Try to nd it:

11100101100111110001000000010000 11100101100111110001000000001000 11100000100000010101000000000000 11100110100011110101000000001000

Although the computer handles binary numbers with ease, people do not. programs long, tiresome, confusing, and meaningless. People nd binary

Eventually, a programmer may start re-

membering some of the binary codes, but such eort should be spent more productively.

1.4

Using Octal or Hexadecimal

We can improve the situation somewhat by writing instructions using octal or hexadecimal numbers, rather than binary. We will use hexadecimal numbers because they are shorter, and because they are the standard for the microprocessor industry. Table 1.1 denes the hexadecimal digits and their binary equivalents. The ARM program to add two numbers now becomes:

E59F1010 E59f0008 E0815000 E58F5008

At the very least, the hexadecimal version is shorter to write and not quite so tiring to examine. Errors are somewhat easier to nd in a sequence of hexadecimal digits. The erroneous version of the addition program, in hexadecimal form, becomes:

1.5.

INSTRUCTION CODE MNEMONICS

Hexadecimal Digit 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F

Binary Equivalent 0000 0001 0010 0011 0100 0101 0110 0111 1000 1001 1010 1011 1100 1101 1110 1111

Decimal Equivalent 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Table 1.1: Hexadecimal Conversion Table

E59F1010 E59f0008 E0815000 E68F5008

The mistake is far more obvious. The hexadecimal version of the program is still dicult to read or understand; for example, it does not distinguish operations from data or addresses, nor does the program listing provide any suggestion as to what the program does. What does 3038 or 31C0 mean? Memorising a card full of codes is hardly an appetising proposition. Furthermore, the codes will be entirely dierent for a dierent microprocessor and the program will require a large amount of documentation.

1.5

Instruction Code Mnemonics

An obvious programming improvement is to assign a name to each instruction code. The instruction code name is called a  mnemonic  or memory jogger.

In fact, all microprocessor manufacturers provide a set of mnemonics for the microprocessor instruction set (they cannot remember hexadecimal codes either). You do not have to abide by the manufacturer's mnemonics; there is nothing sacred about them. However, they are standard for a given microprocessor, and therefore understood by all users. These are the instruction codes Some instructions do for subtraction, that you will nd in manuals, cards, books, articles, and programs. The problem with selecting instruction mnemonics is that not all instructions have obvious names. (for example, and even

ADD, AND, ORR),

others have obvious contractions (such as

SUB

for exclusive-OR), while still others have neither. The result is such mnemonics as However, users who devise their own mnemonics rarely do much better.

MRS. Most manufacturers come up with some reasonable names and some hopeless ones.

EOR BIC, STMIA,

Along with the instruction mnemonics, the manufacturer will usually assign names to the CPU registers. As with the instruction names, some register names are obvious (such as suggestions simply to promote standardisation. If we use standard ARM instruction and register mnemonics, as dened by Advanced RISC Machines, our ARM addition program becomes:

A for Accumu-

lator) while others may have only historical signicance. Again, we will use the manufacturer's

CHAPTER 1.

INTRODUCTION

LDR LDR ADD STR

R1, R0, R5, R5,

num1 num2 R1, R0 num3

The program is still far from obvious, but at least some parts are comprehensible. considerable improvement over

ADD is a E59F. The LDR mnemonic does suggest loading data into a register

or memory location. We now see that some parts of the program are operations and others are addresses. Such a program is an assembly language program.

1.6

The Assembler Program

How do we get the assembly language program into the computer? We have to translate it, either into hexadecimal or into binary numbers. You can translate an assembly language program by hand, instruction by instruction. This is called hand assembly. The following table illustrates the hand assembly of the addition program:

Instruction Mnemonic

LDR LDR ADD STR

Register/Memory Location

R1, num1 R0, num2 R5, R1, R0 R5, num3

Hexadecimal Equivalent

E59F1010 E59F0008 E0815000 E58F5008

Hand assembly is a rote task which is uninteresting, repetitive, and subject to numerous minor errors. Picking the wrong line, transposing digits, omitting instructions, and misreading the codes are only a few of the mistakes that you may make. Most microprocessors complicate the task even further by having instructions with dierent lengths. Some instructions are one word long while others may be two or three. Some instructions require data in the second and third words; others require memory addresses, register numbers, or who knows what? Assembly is a rote task that we can assign to the microcomputer. each instruction requires. The microcomputer never The assembler

makes any mistakes when translating codes; it always knows how many words and what format The program that does this job is an  assembler. program translates a user program, or source program written with mnemonics, into a machine language program, or object program, which the microcomputer can execute. The assembler's input is a source program and its output is an object program. Assemblers have their own rules that you must learn. These include the use of certain markers (such as spaces, commas, semicolons, or colons) in appropriate places, correct spelling, the proper control of information, and perhaps even the correct placement of names and numbers. rules are usually simple and can be learned quickly. These

1.6.1 Additional Features of Assemblers

Early assemblers did little more than translate the mnemonic names of instructions and registers into their binary equivalents. However, most assemblers now provide such additional features as:

Allowing the user to assign names to memory locations, input and output devices, and even sequences of instructions Converting data or addresses from various number systems (for example, decimal or hexadecimal) to binary and converting characters into their ASCII or EBCDIC binary codes

1.7.

DISADVANTAGES OF ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE

Performing some arithmetic as part of the assembly process

Telling the loader program where in memory parts of the program or data should be placed Allowing the user to assign areas of memory as temporary data storage and to place xed data in areas of program memory Providing the information required to include standard programs from program libraries, or programs written at some other time, in the current program Allowing the user to control the format of the program listing and the input and output devices employed

1.6.2 Choosing an Assembler

All of these features, of course, involve additional cost and memory. Microcomputers generally have much simpler assemblers than do larger computers, but the tendency is always for the size of assemblers to increase. You will often have a choice of assemblers. The important criterion is not how many o-beat features the assembler has, but rather how convenient it is to use in normal practice.

1.7

Disadvantages of Assembly Language

The assembler does not solve all the problems of programming. One problem is the tremendous gap between the microcomputer instruction set and the tasks which the microcomputer is to perform. Computer instructions tend to do things like add the contents of two registers, shift the contents of the Accumulator one bit, or place a new value in the Program Counter. On the other hand, a user generally wants a microcomputer to do something like print a number, look for and react to a particular command from a teletypewriter, or activate a relay at the proper time. An assembly language programmer must translate such tasks into a sequence of simple computer instructions. The translation can be a dicult, time-consuming job. Furthermore, if you are programming in assembly language, you must have detailed knowledge of the particular microcomputer that you are using. You must know what registers and instructions the microcomputers has, precisely how the instructions aect the various registers, what addressing methods the computer uses, and a mass of other information. None of this information is relevant to the task which the microcomputer must ultimately perform. In addition, assembly language programs are not portable. Each microcomputer has its own

assembly language which reects its own architecture. An assembly language program written for the ARM will not run on a 486, Pentium, or Z8000 microprocessor. For example, the addition program written for the Z8000 would be:

LD ADD LD

R0,%6000 R0,%6002 %6004,R0

The lack of portability not only means that you will not be able to use your assembly language program on a dierent microcomputer, but also that you will not be able to use any programs that were not specically written for the microcomputer you are using. This is a particular drawback for new microcomputers, since few assembly language programs exist for them. The result, too frequently, is that you are on your own. If you need a program to perform a particular task, you are not likely to nd it in the small program libraries that most manufacturers provide. Nor are you likely to nd it in an archive, journal article, or someone's old program File. You will probably have to write it yourself.

CHAPTER 1.

INTRODUCTION

1.8

High-Level Languages
high-level procedure-oriented

The solution to many of the diculties associated with assembly language programs is to use, insted, or langauges. Such languages allow you to describe tasks in forms that are problem-oriented rather than computer-oriented. Each statement in a high-level language performs a recognisable function; it will generally correspond to many assembly language instruction. A program called a compiler translates the high-level language source program into object code or machine language instructions. Many dierent hgih-level languages exist for dierent types of tasks. (For mula If, for exampe, you can

express what you want the computer to do in algebraic notation, you can write your

Tran slation

FORTRAN

Language), the oldest of the high-level languages. Now, if you want to add

two numbers, you just tell the computer:

sum = num1 + num2;

That is a lot simpler (and shorter) than either the equivalent machine language program or the equivalent assembly language program. Other high-level languages include applications), them in

COBOL (for business BASIC (a cut down version of FORTRAN designed to prototype ideas before codeing full), C (a systems-programming language), C++ and JAVA (object-orientated general

development languages).

1.8.1 Advantages of High-Level Languages

Clearly, high-level languages make program easier and faster to write. assembly language. A common estimate is that a programmer can write a program about ten times as fast in a high-level langauge as in That is just writing the program; it does not include problem denition, program design, debugging testing or documentation, all of which become simpler and faster. The high-level language program is, for instance, partly self-documenting. Even if you do not know

FORTRAN,

you could probably tell what the statement illustrated above does.

Machine Independence
High-level languages solve many other problems associated with assembly language programming. The high-level language has its own syntax (usually dened by an international standard). The language does not mention the instruction set, registers, or other features of a particular computer. The compiler takes care of all such details. Programmers can concentrate on their own tasks; they do not need a detailed understanding of the underlying CPU architecture  for that matter, they do not need to know anything about the computer the are programming.

Portability
Programs written in a high-level language are portable  at least, in theory. They will run on any computer that has a standard compiler for that language. At the same time, all previous programs written in a high-level language for prior computers and available to you when programming a new computer. This can mean thousands of programs in the case of a common language like

C.

1.8.

HIGH-LEVEL LANGUAGES

1.8.2 Disadvantages of High-Level Languages

If all the good things we have said about high-level languages are true  if you can write programs faster and make them portable besides  why bother with assebly languages? disadvantages that balance the advantages. Who wants to worry about registers, instruction codes, mnemonics, and all that garbage! As usual, there are

Syntax
One obvious problem is that, as with assembly language, you have to learn the rules or

syntax

of any high-level language you want to use. A high-level langauge has a fairly complicated set of rules. You will nd that it takes a lot of time just to get a program that is syntactically correct (and even then it probably will not do what you want). A high-level computer language is like a foreign language. If you have talent, you will get used to the rules and be able to turn out programs that the compiler will accept. Still, learning the rules and trying to get the program accepted by the compiler does not contribute directly to doing your job.

Cost of Compilers
Another obvious problem is that you need a compiler to translate program written in a high-level language into machine language. amounts of memory. Compilers are expensive and use a large amount of memory. While most assemblers occupy only a few KBytes of memory, compilers would occupy far larger A compiler could easily require over four times as much memory as an assembler. So the amount of overhead involved in using the compiler is rather large.

Adapting Tasks to a Language

Furthermore, only some compilers will make the implementation of your task simpler. language has its own target proglem area, for example, that can be expressed as algebraic formulas.

FORTRAN

Each

is well-suited to problems

If however, your problem is controlling a display

terminal, editing a string of characters, or monitoring an alarm system, your problem cannot be easily expressed. In fact, formulating the solution in suitable high-level language. less widely used.

FORTRAN

may be more awkward and

more dicult than formulating it in assembly language. The answer is, of course, to use a more Languages specically designed for tasks such as those mentioned above do exist  they are called system implementation languages. However, these languages are

Ineciency
High-level languages do not produce very ecient machine language program. The basic reason for this is that compilation is an automatic process which is riddled with compromises to allow for many ranges of possibilities. The compiler works much like a computerised language translator  sometimes the words are right but the sentence structures are awkward. A simpler compiler connot know when a variable is no longer being used and can be discarded, when a register should be used rather than a memory location, or when variables have simple relationships. The experienced programmer can take advantage of shortcuts to shorten execution time or reduce memory usage. A few compiler (known as optimizing cmpilers) can also do this, but such compilers are much larger than regular compilers.

CHAPTER 1.

INTRODUCTION

1.9

Which Level Should You Use?

Which language level you use depends on your particulr application. Let us briey note some of the factors which may favor particular levels:

1.9.1 Applications for Machine Language

Virtually no one programs in machine language because it wastes human time and is dicult to document. An assembler costs very little and greatly reduces programming time.

1.9.2 Applications for Assembly Language

Limited data processing High-volume applications Real-Time control applications

Short to moderate-sized programs Application where memory cost is a factor Applications involving more input/output or control than computation

1.9.3 Applications for High-Level Language

Long programs

Compatibility with similar applications using larger computers

Low-volume applications

Applications involing more computation than input/output or control

Programs which are expected to undergo many changes

Applications where the amout of memory required is already very large

Availability of a specic program in a high-level language which can be used in the application.

1.9.4 Other Considerations

Many other factors are also important, such as the availability of a large computer for use in development, experience with particular languages, and compatibility with other applications. If hardware will ultimately be the largest cost in your application, or if speed is critical, you should favor assembly language. But be prepared to spend much extra time in software development in exchange for lower memory costs and higher execution speeds. If software will be the largest cost in your application, you should favor a high-level language. But be prepared to spend the extra money required for the supporting hardware and software. Of course, no one except some theorists will object if you use both assembly and high-level languages. You can write the program originally in a high-level language and then patch some sections in assembly language. However, most users prefer not to do this because it can create havoc in debugging, testing, and documentation.

1.10

Why Learn Assembler?

Given the advance of high-level languages, why do you need to learn assembly language programming? The reasons are:

1.10.

WHY LEARN ASSEMBLER?

1. Most industrial microcomputer users program in assembly language. 2. Many microcomputer users will continue to program in assembly language since they need the detailed control that it provides. 3. No suitable high-level language has yet become widely available or standardised. 4. Many application require the eciency of assembly language. 5. An understanding of assembly language can help in evaluating high-level languages. 6. Almost all microcomputer programmers ultimately nd that they need some knowledge of assembly language, most often to debug programs, write I/O routines, speed up or shorten critical sections of programs written in high-level languages, utilize or modify operating system functions, and undertand other people's programs.

The rest of these notes will deal exclusively with assembler and assembly language programming.

10

CHAPTER 1.

INTRODUCTION

Assemblers

This chapter discusses the functions performed by assemblers, beginning with features common to most assemblers and proceeding through more elaborate capabilities such as macros and conditional assembly. You may wish to skim this chapter for the present and return to it when you feel more comfortable with the material. As we mentioned, today's assemblers do much more than translate assembly language mnemonics into binary codes. But we will describe how an assembler handles the translation of mnemonics before describing additional assembler features. Finally we will explain how assemblers are used.

2.1

Fields

Assembly language instructions (or statements) are divided into a number of  elds . The operation code eld is the only eld which can never he empty; it always contains either an instruction mnemonic or a directive to the assembler, sometimes called a pseudo-instruction, pseudo-operation, or pseudo-op. The operand or address eld may contain an address or data, or it may be blank. The comment and label elds are optional. A programmer will assign a label to a statement or add a comment as a personal convenience: namely, to make the program easier to read and use. Of course, the assembler must have some way of telling where one eld ends and another begins. Assemblers often require that each eld start in a specic column. This is a xed format. However, xed formats are inconvenient when the input medium is paper tape; xed formats are also a nuisance to programmers. The alternative is a free format where the elds may appear anywhere on the line.

2.1.1 Delimiters
If the assembler cannot use the position on the line to tell the elds apart, it must use something else. Most assemblers use a special symbol or delimiter at the beginning or end of each eld.

Label Field
VALUE1 VALUE2 RESULT START NEXT:

Operation Code or Mnemonic Field

DCW DCW DCW MOV ADD STR

Operand or Address Field

0x201E 0x0774 1 R0, VALUE1 R0, R0, VALUE2 RESULT, R0

Comment Field
;FIRST VALUE ;SECOND VALUE ;16-BIT STORAGE FOR ADDITION RESULT ;GET FIRST VALUE ;ADD SECOND VALUE TO FIRST VALUE ;STORE RESULT OF ADDITION ;NEXT INSTRUCTION

11

12

CHAPTER 2.
label

ASSEMBLERS

whitespace

instruction

whitespace

; comment

whitespace comma asterisk semicolon

Between label and operation code, between operation code and address, and before an entry in the comment eld Between operands in the address eld Before an entire line of comment Marks the start of a comment on a line that contains preceding code
Table 2.1: Standard ARM Assembler Delimiters

The most common delimiter is the space character. Commas, periods, semicolons, colons, slashes, question marks, and other characters that would not otherwise be used in assembly language programs also may serve as delimiters. The general form of layout for the ARM assembler is: You will have to exercise a little care with delimiters. Some assemblers are fussy about extra spaces or the appearance of delimiters in comments or labels. A well-written assembler will handle these minor problems, but many assemblers are not well-written. Our recommendation is simple: avoid potential problems if you can. The following rules will help:

Do not use extra spaces, in particular, do not put spaces after commas that separate operands, even though the ARM assembler allows you to do this. Do not use delimiter characters in names or labels. Include standard delimiters even if your assembler does not require them. Then it will be more likely that your programs are in correct form for another assembler.

2.1.2 Labels
The label eld is the rst eld in an assembly language instruction; it may be blank. If a label is present, the assembler denes the label as equivalent to the address into which the rst byte of the object code generated for that instruction will be loaded. You may subsequently use the label as an address or as data in another instruction's address eld. The assembler will replace the label with the assigned value when creating an object program. The ARM assembler requires labels to start at the rst character of a line. However, some other assemblers also allow you to have the label start anywhere along a line, in which case you must ARM assembler. Labels are most frequently used in Branch or SWI instructions. These instructions place a new value in the program counter and so alter the normal sequential execution of instructions. means  place use a colon (:) as the delimiter to terminate the label eld. Colon delimiters are not used by the

B 15016 the value 15016 in the program counter. The next instruction to be executed will be the one in memory location 15016 . The instruction B START means  place the value assigned to the label START in the program counter. The next instruction to be executed will be the on at the address corresponding to the label START. Figure 2.1 contains an example.
Why use a label? Here are some reasons:

A label makes a program location easier to nd and remember. The label can easily be moved, if required, to change or correct a program. The assembler will automatically change all instructions that use the label when the program is reassembled.

2.1.

FIELDS

13

Assembly language Program

START MOV . . . BAL R0, VALUE1 (Main Program) START

When the machine language version of this program is executed, the instruction B START causes the address of the instruction labeled START to be placed in the program counter That instruction will then be executed.
Figure 2.1: Assigning and Using a Label

The assembler can relocate the whole program by adding a constant (a relocation constant) to each address in which a label was used. Thus we can move the program to allow for the insertion of other programs or simply to rearrange memory.

The program is easier to use as a library program; that is, it is easier for someone else to take your program and add it to some totally dierent program. You do not have to gure out memory addresses. Figuring out memory addresses is particularly dicult with microprocessors which have instructions that vary in length.

You should assign a label to any instruction that you might want to refer to later. The next question is how to choose a label. The assembler often places some restrictions on the number of characters (usually 5 or 6), the leading character (often must be a letter), and the trailing characters (often must be letters, numbers, or one of a few special characters). Beyond these restrictions, the choice is up to you. Our own preference is to use labels that suggest their purpose, i.e., mnemonic labels. examples are Typical

ADDW in a routine that adds one word into a sum, SRCHETX in a routine that searches for the ASCII character ETX, or NKEYS for a location in data memory that contains the number of
key entries. Meaningful labels are easier to remember and contribute to program documentation. Some programmers use a standard format for labels, such as starting with the program. Some label selection rules will keep you out of trouble. We recommend the following:

L0000.

These labels are

self-sequencing (you can skip a few numbers to permit insertions), but they do not help document

Do not use labels that are the same as operation codes or other mnemonics. Most assemblers will not allow this usage; others will, but it is confusing. Do not use labels that are longer than the assembler recognises. Assemblers have various rules, and often ignore some of the characters at the end of a long label. Avoid special characters (non-alphabetic and non-numeric) and lower-case letters. stick to capital letters and numbers. Some

assemblers will not permit them; others allow only certain ones. The simplest practice is to

Start each label with a letter. Such labels are always acceptable. Do not use labels that could be confused with each other. Avoid the letters the numbers

0, 1,

and

2.

Also avoid things like

XXXX

and

XXXXX.

I, O,

and

and

Assembly programming is

dicult enough without tempting fate or Murphy's Law.

When you are not sure if a label is legal, do not use it. You will not get any real benet from discovering exactly what the assembler will accept.

14

CHAPTER 2.

ASSEMBLERS

These are recommendations, not rules. You do not have to follow them but don't blame us if you waste time on unnecessary problems.

2.2

Operation Codes (Mnemonics)

One main task of the assembler is the translation of mnemonic operation codes into their binary equivalents. The assembler performs this task using a xed table much as you would if you were doing the assembly by hand. The assembler must, however, do more than just translate the operation codes. It must also

somehow determine how many operands the instruction requires and what type they are. This may be rather complex  some instructions (like a Stop) have no operands, others (like a Jump instruction) have one, while still others (like a transfer between registers or a multiple-bit shift) require two. Some instructions may even allow alternatives; for example, some computers have instructions (like Shift or Clear) which can either apply to a register in the CPU or to a memory location. We will not discuss how the assembler makes these distinctions; we will just note that it must do so.

2.3

Directives

Some assembly language instructions are not directly translated into machine language instructions. These instructions are directives to the assembler; they assign the program to certain areas in memory, dene symbols, designate areas of memory for data storage, place tables or other xed data in memory, allow references to other programs, and perform minor housekeeping functions. To use these assembler directives or pseudo-operations a programmer places the directive's mnemonic in the operation code eld, and, if the specied directive requires it, an address or data in the address eld. The most common directives are:

DEFINE CONSTANT (Data) EQUATE (Dene) AREA DEFINE STORAGE (Reserve)

Dierent assemblers use dierent names for those operations but their functions are the same. Housekeeping directives include:

END

LIST

FORMAT

TTL

PAGE

INCLUDE

We will discuss these pseudo-operations briey, although their functions are usually obvious.

2.3.1 The DEFINE CONSTANT (Data) Directive

The DEFINE CONSTANT directive allows the programmer to enter xed data into program memory. This data may include:

2.3.

DIRECTIVES

15

Names Messages Commands Tax tables Thresholds Test patterns Lookup tables Standard forms Masking patterns Weighting factors

Conversion factors Key identications Subroutine addresses Code conversion tables Identication patterns State transition tables Synchronisation patterns Coecients for equations Character generation patterns Characteristic times or frequencies

The dene constant directive treats the data as a permanent part of the program. The format of a dene constant directive is usually quite simple. An instruction like:

DZCON DZCON. DC

DCW

12

will place the number 12 in the next available memory location and assign that location the name Every directive usually has a label, unless it is one of a series. The data and label may take any form that the assembler permits. More elaborate dene constant directives that handle a large amount of data at one time are provided, for example:

EMESS SQRS

DCB DCW

'ERROR' 1,4,9,16,25

A single directive may ll many bytes of program memory, limited perhaps by the length of a line or by the restrictions of a particular assembler. Of course, you can always overcome any restrictions by following one dene constant directive with another:

MESSG

DCB DCB DCB DCB DCB DCB

"NOW IS THE " "TIME FOR ALL " "GOOD MEN " "TO COME TO THE " "AID OF THEIR " "COUNTRY", 0 ;note the '0' terminating the string

Microprocessor assemblers typically have some variations of standard dene constant directives. Dene Byte or to (Dene Other special directives may handle character-coded data. The ARM assembler also denes

DCB handles 8-bit numbers; Dene Word or DCW handles 32-bit numbers or addresses. DCD Constant Data) which may be used in place of DCW.

2.3.2 The EQUATE Directive

The EQUATE directive allows the programmer to equate names with addresses or data. pseudo-operation is almost always given the mnemonic

EQU.

This

The names may refer to device ad-

dresses, numeric data, starting addresses, xed addresses, etc. The EQUATE directive assigns the numeric value in its operand eld to the label in its label eld. Here are two examples:

TTY LAST

EQU EQU

5 5000

16

CHAPTER 2.

ASSEMBLERS

Most assemblers will allow you to dene one label in terms of another, for example:

LAST ST1

EQU EQU

FINAL START+1

The label in the operand eld must, of course, have been previously dened. Often, the operand eld may contain more complex expressions, as we shall see later. Double name assignments (two names for the same data or address) may be useful in patching together programs that use dierent names for the same variable (or dierent spellings of what was supposed to be the same name). Note that an EQU directive does not cause the assembler to place anything in memory. The assembler simply enters an additional name into a table (called a symbol table) which the assembler maintains. When do you use a name? The answer is: whenever you have a parameter that you might want to change or that has some meaning besides its ordinary numeric value. We typically assign names to time constants, device addresses, masking patterns, conversion factors, and the like. A name like

DELAY, TTY, KBD, KROW, or OPEN not only makes the parameter easier to change, but it also adds to
program documentation. We also assign names to memory locations that have special purposes; they may hold data, mark the start of the program, or be available for intermediate storage. What name do you use? The best rules are much the same as in the case of labels, except that here meaningful names really count. Why not call the teletypewriter time delay rather

TTY instead of X15, a bit BTIME or BTDLY rather than WW, the number of the GO key on a keyboard GOKEY than HORSE? This advice seems straightforward, but a surprising number of programmers

do not follow it. Where do you place the EQUATE directives? The best place is at the start of the program, under appropriate comment headings such as or

program locations.

i/o addresses, temporary storage, time constants,

This makes the denitions easy to nd if you want to change them.

Furthermore, another user will be able to look up all the denitions in one centralised place. Clearly this practice improves documentation and makes the program easier to use. Denitions used only in a specic subroutine should appear at the start of the subroutine.

2.3.3 The AREA Directive

The AREA directive allows the programmer to specify the memory locations where programs, subroutines, or data will reside. Programs and data may be located in dierent areas of memory depending on the memory conguration. Startup routines interrupt service routines, and other required programs may be scattered around memory at xed or convenient addresses. The assembler maintains a location counter (comparable to the computer's program counter) which contains the location in memory of the instruction or data item being processed. An area directive causes the assembler to place a new value in the location counter, much as a Jump instruction causes the CPU to place a new value in the program counter. in memory it should place the instructions and data. Microprocessor programs often contain several The output from the assembler must not only contain instructions and data, but must also indicate to the loader program where

AREA

statements for the following purposes:

Reset (startup) address Interrupt service addresses Trap (software interrupt) addresses RAM storage

Stack Main program Subroutines Input/Output

2.4.

OPERANDS AND ADDRESSES

17

Still other origin statements may allow room for later insertions, place tables or data in memory, or assign vacant memory space for data buers. Program and data memory in microcomputers may occupy widely separate addresses to simplify the hardware. Typical origin statements are:

AREA AREA AREA

RESET $1000 INT3 AREA

statement.

The assembler will assume a fake address if the programmer does not put in an assembly to fail.

The AREA statement at the start of an ARM program is required, and its absence will cause the

2.3.4 Housekeeping Directives

There are various assembler directives that aect the operation of the assembler and its program listing rather than the object program itself. Common directives include:

END,

marks the end of the assembly language source program. This must appear in the le or a missing END directive error will occur.

INCLUDE

will include the contents of a named le into the current le. When the included le

has been processed the assembler will continue with the next line in the original le. For example the following line

INCLUDE

MATH.S

will include the content of the le

math.s

at that point of the le.

You should never use a lable with an include directive. Any labels dened in the included le will be dened in the current le, hence an error will be reported if the same label appears in both the source and include le. An include le may itself include other les, which in turn could include other les, and so on, however, the level of includes the assembler will accept is limited. It is not recommended you go beyond three levels for even the most complex of software.

2.3.5 When to Use Labels

Users often wonder if or when they can assign a label to an assembler directive. These are our recommendations: 1. All

EQU

directives must have labels; they are useless otherwise, since the purpose of an

EQU

is to dene its label. 2. Dene Constant and Dene Storage directives usually have labels. The label identies the rst memory location used or assigned. 3. Other directives should not have labels.

2.4

Operands and Addresses

The assembler allow the programmer a lot of freedom in describing the contents of the operand or address eld. But remember that the assembler has built-in names for registers and instructions and may have other built-in names. We will now describe some common options for the operand eld.

18

CHAPTER 2.

ASSEMBLERS

2.4.1 Decimal Numbers

The assembler assume all numbers to be decimal unless they are marked otherwise. So:

ADD

100

means add the contents of memory location 100 10 to the contents of the Accumulator.

2.4.2 Other Number Systems

The assembler will also accept hexadecimal entries. But you must identify these number systems in some way: for example, by preceding the number with an identifying character. 2_nnn Binary Octal Decimal Hexadecimal Base 2 Base 8 Base 10 Base 16

8_nnn

nnn 0xnnn

It is good practice to enter numbers in the base in which their meaning is the clearest: that is, decimal constants in decimal; addresses and BCD numbers in hexadecimal; masking patterns or bit outputs in hexadecimal.

2.4.3 Names
Names can appear in the operand eld; they will be treated as the data that they represent. Remember, however, that there is a dierence between operands and addresses. assembly language program the sequence: In an ARM

FIVE

EQU ADD R2.

5 R2, #FIVE

will add the contents of memory location FIVE (not necessarily the number 5) to the contents of data register

2.4.4 Character Codes

The assembler allows text to be entered as ASCII strings. Such strings must be surrounded with double quotation marks, unless a single ASCII character is quoted, when single qoutes may be used exactly as in 'C'. We recommend that you use character strings for all text. It improves the clarity and readability of the program.

2.4.5 Arithmetic and Logical Expressions

Assemblers permit combinations of the data forms described above, connected by arithmetic, logical, or special operators. These combinations are called expressions. allow simple arithmetic expressions such as

START+1.

Almost all assemblers

Some assemblers also permit multiplication,

division, logical functions, shifts, etc. Note that the assembler evaluates expressions at assembly time; if a symbol appears in an expression, the address is used (i.e., the location counter or EQUATE value). Assemblers vary in what expressions they accept and how they interpret them. Complex expressions make a program dicult to read and understand.

2.5.

COMMENTS

19

2.4.6 General Recommendations

We have made some recommendations during this section but will repeat them and add others here. In general, the user should strive for clarity and simplicity. There is no payo for being an expert in the intricacies of an assembler or in having the most complex expression on the block. We suggest the following approach:

Use the clearest number system or character code for data. Masks and BCD numbers in decimal, ASCII characters in octal, or ordinary numerical constants in hexadecimal serve no purpose and therefore should not be used. Remember to distinguish data from addresses. Don't use osets from the location counter. Keep expressions simple and obvious. Don't rely on obscure features of the assembler.

2.5

Comments

All assemblers allow you to place comments in a source program. Comments have no eect on the object code, but they help you to read, understand, and document the program. Good commenting is an essential part of writing computer programs, programs without comments are very dicult to understand. We will discuss commenting along with documentation in a later chapter, but here are some guidelines:

Use comments to tell what application task the program is performing, not how the microcomputer executes the instructions. Comments should say things like is temperature above limit?, linefeed to TTY, or examine load switch. Comments should not say things like add 1 to Accumulator, jump to Start, or look at carry. You should describe how the program is aecting the system; internal eects on the CPU should be obvious from the code.

Keep comments brief and to the point. Details should be available elsewhere in the documentation. Comment all key points. Do not comment standard instructions or sequences that change counters or pointers; pay special attention to instructions that may not have an obvious meaning. Do not use obscure abbreviations. Make the comments neat and readable. Comment all denitions, describing their purposes. Also mark all tables and data storage areas. Comment sections of the program as well as individual instructions. Be consistent in your terminology. You can (should) be repetitive, you need not consult a thesaurus.

20

CHAPTER 2.

ASSEMBLERS

Leave yourself notes at points that you nd confusing: for example, remember carry was set by last instruction. If such points get cleared up later in program development, you may drop these comments in the nal documentation.

A well-commented program is easy to use. You will recover the time spent in commenting many times over. We will try to show good commenting style in the programming examples, although we often over-comment for instructional purposes.

2.6

Types of Assemblers

Although all assemblers perform the same tasks, their implementations vary greatly. We will not try to describe all the existing types of assemblers, we will merely dene the terms and indicate some of the choices. A

cross-assembler

is an assembler that runs on a computer other than the one for which it assembles

object programs. The computer on which the cross-assembler runs is typically a large computer with extensive software support and fast peripherals. The computer for which the cross-assembler assembles programs is typically a micro like the 6809 or MC68000. When a new microcomputer is introduced, a cross-assembler is often provided to run on existing development systems. For example, ARM provide the 'Armulator' cross-assembler that will run on a PC development system. A

self-assembler

or

resident assembler

is an assembler that runs on the computer for which it

assembles programs. The self-assembler will require some memory and peripherals, and it may run quite slowly compared to a cross-assembler. A A

macroassembler microassembler

is an assembler that allows you to dene sequences of instructions as macros. is an assembler used to write the microprograms which dene the instruction Microprogramming has nothing specically to do with programming micro-

set of a computer.

computers, but has to do with the internal operation of the computer. A

meta-assembler

is an assembler that can handle many dierent instruction sets. The user must

dene the particular instruction set being used. A

one-pass assembler

is an assembler that goes through the assembly language program only

once. Such an assembler must have some way of resolving forward references, for example, Jump instructions which use labels that have not yet been dened. A

two-pass assembler

is an assembler that goes through the assembly language source program

twice. The rst time the assembler simply collects and denes all the symbols; the second time it replaces the references with the actual denitions. A two-pass assembler has no problems with forward references but may be quite slow if no backup storage (like a oppy disk) is available; then the assembler must physically read the program twice from a slow input medium (like a teletypewriter paper tape reader). Most microprocessor-based assemblers require two passes.

2.7

Errors
Some

Assemblers normally provide error messages, often consisting of an error code number. typical errors are:

2.8.

LOADERS
Often a misspelling or an omitted denition Such as a 2 in a binary number A wrong delimiter or incorrect operands for example, two operators in a row Usually the value is too large Pretty self explanatory Two dierent values assigned to one name Such as a label on a pseudo-operation that cannot have one Probably a miss spelt lable name

21

Undened name Illegal character Illegal format Invalid expression Illegal value Missing operand Double denition Illegal label Missing label Undened operation code

In interpreting assembler errors, you must remember that the assembler may get on the wrong track if it nds a stray letter, an extra space, or incorrect punctuation. The assembler will Caution and then proceed to misinterpret the succeeding instructions and produce meaningless error messages. Always look at the rst error very carefully; subsequent ones may depend on it. consistent adherence to standard formats will eliminate many annoying mistakes.

2.8

Loaders

The loader is the program which actually takes the output (object code) from the assembler and places it in memory. Loaders range from the very simple to the very complex. We will describe a few dierent types. A

bootstrap loader

is a program that uses its own rst few instructions to load the rest of itself The assembler may place a

or another loader program into memory. The bootstrap loader may be in ROM, or you may have to enter it into the computer memory using front panel switches. bootstrap loader at the start of the object program that it produces. A

relocating loader

can load programs anywhere in memory.

It typically loads each program

into the memory space immediately following that used by the previous program. The programs, however, must themselves be capable of being moved around in this way; that is, they must be relocatable. An memory. A

absolute loader,

in contrast, will always place the programs in the same area of

linking loader

loads programs and subroutines that have been assembled separately; it resolves

cross-references  that is, instructions in one program that refer to a label in another program. Object programs loaded by a linking loader must be created by an assembler that allows external references. An alternative approach is to separate the linking and loading functions and have the linking performed by a program called a

link editor

and the loading done by a loader.

22

CHAPTER 2.

ASSEMBLERS

ARM Architecture

This chapter outlines the ARM processor's architecture and describes the syntax rules of the ARM assembler. Later chapters of this book describe the ARM's stack and exception processing system in more detail. Figure 3.1 on the following page shows the internal structure of the ARM processor. The ARM is a

Reduced Instruction Set Computer

(RISC) system and includes the attributes typical to that

type of system:

A large array of uniform registers. A load/store model of data-processing where operations can only operate on registers and not directly on memory. This requires that all data be loaded into registers before an operation can be preformed, the result can then be used for further processing or stored back into memory.

A small number of addressing modes with all load/store addresses begin determined from registers and instruction elds only. A uniform xed length instruction (32-bit).

In addition to these traditional features of a RISC system the ARM provides a number of additional features:

Separate

Arithmetic Logic Unit

(ALU) and shifter giving additional control over data pro-

cessing to maximize execution speed. Auto-increment and Auto-decrement addressing modes to improve the operation of program loops. Conditional execution of instructions to reduce pipeline ushing and thus increase execution speed.

3.1

Processor modes

The ARM supports the seven processor modes shown in table 3.1. Mode changes can be made under software control, or can be caused by external interrupts or exception processing. Most application programs execute in User mode. While the processor is in User mode, the

program being executed is unable to access some protected system resources or to change mode, other than by causing an exception to occur (see 3.4 on page 29). This allows a suitably written operating system to control the use of system resources.

23

24

CHAPTER 3.

ARM ARCHITECTURE

Figure 3.1: ARM Block Diagram

3.2.

REGISTERS

25

Processor mode
User FIQ IRQ Supervisor Abort Undened System

usr q irq svc abt und sys

Description
Normal program execution mode Fast Interrupt for high-speed data transfer Used for general-purpose interrupt handling A protected mode for the operating system Implements virtual memory and/or memory protection Supports software emulation of hardware coprocessors Runs privileged operating system tasks Table 3.1: ARM processor modes

The modes other than User mode are known as

privileged modes.

They have full access to system

resources and can change mode freely. Five of them are known as

exception modes :

FIQ (Fast

Interrupt), IRQ (Interrupt), Supervisor, Abort, and Undened. These are entered when specic exceptions occur. Each of them has some additional registers to avoid corrupting User mode state when the exception occurs (see 3.2 for details). The remaining mode is System mode, it is not entered by any exception and has exactly the same registers available as User mode. However, it is a privileged mode and is therefore not subject to the User mode restrictions. It is intended for use by operating system tasks which need access to system resources, but wish to avoid using the additional registers associated with the exception modes. Avoiding such use ensures that the task state is not corrupted by the occurrence of any exception.

3.2

Registers

The ARM has a total of 37 registers. These comprise 30 general purpose registers, 6 status registers and a program counter. Figure 3.2 illustrates the registers of the ARM. Only fteen of the general purpose registers are available at any one time depending on the processor mode. There are a standard set of eight general purpose registers that are always available ( uses being placed on them by the processors' architecture. A few registers (

R0

R7 ) no

matter which mode the processor is in. These registers are truly general-purpose, with no special

R8

R12 )

are common to all processor modes with the exception of the

q

mode. This means that to all intent and purpose these are general registers and have no special use. However, when the processor is in the fast interrupt mode these registers and replaced with dierent set of registers ( consider they to be

R8_q

R12_q ).

Although the processor does not give any special

purpose to these registers they can be used to hold information between fast interrupts. You can

static

registers. The idea is that you can make a fast interrupt even faster

by holding information in these registers. The general purpose registers can be used to handle 8-bit bytes, 16-bit half-words , or 32-bit words. When we use a 32-bit register in a byte instruction only the least signicant 8 bits are used. In a half-word instruction only the least signicant 16 bits are used. Figure 3.3 demonstrates this. The remaining registers (

R13

R13

R15 )

are special purpose registers and have very specic roles:

is also known as the Stack Pointer, while

the Program Counter. The user (

usr)

R14

is known as the Link Register, and

and System (

sys)

R15

is

modes share the same registers. The

exception modes all have their own version of these registers. Making a reference to register

R14

will assume you are referring to the register for the current processor mode. If you wish to refer

Although the ARM does allow for Half-Word instructions, the emulator we are using does not.

26

CHAPTER 3.
Modes Privileged Modes Exception Modes User R0 R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 R9 R10 R11 R12 R13 R14 PC CPSR System R0 R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 R9 R10 R11 R12 R13 R14 PC CPSR Supervisor R0 R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 R9 R10 R11 R12 R13_svc R14_svc PC CPSR SPSR_svc Abort R0 R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 R9 R10 R11 R12 R13_abt R14_abt PC CPSR SPSR_abt Undened R0 R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 R9 R10 R11 R12 R13_und R14_und PC CPSR SPSR_und

ARM ARCHITECTURE

Interrupt R0 R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 R9 R10 R11 R12 R13_irq R14_irq PC CPSR SPSR_irq

Fast Interrupt R0 R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8_q R9_q R10_q R11_q R12_q R13_q R14_q PC CPSR SPSR_q

Figure 3.2: Register Organization

Bit:

31

23

24

16

15

8-Bit Byte 16-Bit Half Word 32-Bit Word Figure 3.3: Byte/Half Word/Word

to the user mode version of this register you have refer to the mode other than user mode.

R14_usr

register. You may only

refer to register from other modes when the processor is in one of the privileged modes, i.e., any

There are also one or two status registers depending on which mode the processor is in. The Current Processor Status Register ( Register ( (including its current mode). In the exception modes there is an additional Saved Processor Status

CPSR) holds information about the current status of the processor

SPSR)

which holds information on the processors state before the system changed into

this mode, i.e., the processor status just before an exception.

3.2.1 The stack pointer, SP or R13

Register

R13

is used as a stack pointer and is also known as the

has its own version of

R13 ,

SP register.

Each exception mode

which points to a stack dedicated to that exception mode.

The stack is typically used to store temporary values. It is normal to store the contents of any registers a function is going to use on the stack on entry to a subroutine. This leaves the register free for use during the function. The routine can then recover the register values from the stack

3.2.

REGISTERS

27

on exit from the subroutine. In this way the subroutine can preserve the value of the register and not corrupt the value as would otherwise be the case. See Chapter 15 for more information on using the stack.

3.2.2 The Link Register, LR or R14

Register

R14

is also known as the

Link Register

or

LR.

It is used to hold the return address for a subroutine. When a subroutine call is performed via a

BL instruction, R14
ways:

is set to the address of the next instruction. To return from a subroutine you

need to copy the Link Register into the Program Counter. This is typically done in one of the two

Execute either of these instructions:

MOV

PC, LR

or

BAL

LR

On entry to the subroutine store

R14

to the stack with an instruction of the form:

STMFD LDMFD

SP!,{ registers , LR} SP!,{ registers , PC}

and use a matching instruction to return from the subroutine:

This saves the Link Register on the stack at the start of the subroutine. On exit from the subroutine it collects all the values it placed on the stack, including the return address that was in the Link Register, except it returns this address directly into the Program Counter instead. See Chapter

?? on page ?? for further details of using the stack, and Chapter 15 on page 113 for
SPSR R14
is set to the address after the

further details on using subroutines. When an exception occurs, the exception mode's version of instruction which has just been completed. The

is a copy of the

CPSR

just before the

exception occurred. The return from an exception is performed in a similar way to a subroutine return, but using slightly dierent instructions to ensure full restoration of the state of the program that was being executed when the exception occurred. See 3.4 on page 29 for more details.

3.2.3 The program counter, PC or R15

Register to as an is to be preformed

Program Counter known as the PC. It is used to identify which instruction next. As the PC holds the address of the next instruction it is often referred instruction pointer. The name program counter dates back to the times when program
holds the

R15

instructions where read in o of punched cards, it refers to the card position within a stack of cards. In spite of its name it does not actually count anything!

Reading the program counter

When an instruction reads the 8 bytes. This is the address of the instruction

PC the value returned is the address of the current instruction plus after the next instruction to be executed 2 .

This is caused by the processor having already fetched the next instruction from memory while it was deciding what the current instruction was. Thus the PC is still the next instruction to be executed, but that is not the instruction immediately after the current one.

28

CHAPTER 3.

ARM ARCHITECTURE

This way of reading the

PC is primarily used for quick, position-independent addressing of nearby

STR
(Store Register) or

instructions and data, including position-independent branching within a program. An exception to this rule occurs when an instruction stores

R15 .

STM

(Store Multiple Registers)

instructions that store

R15 .

The value stored is UNKNOWN and it is best to avoid the use of these

Writing the program counter

When an instruction writes to

R15

the normal result is that the value written is treated as an

instruction address and the system starts to execute the instruction at that address .

3.2.4 Current Processor Status Registers: CPSR

Rather surprisingly the

current processor status register (CPSR) contains the current status of the

processor. This includes various condition code ags, interrupt status, processor mode and other status and control information. The exception modes also have a the value of the

saved processor status register (SPSR), that is used to preserve CPSR when the associated exception occurs. Because the User and System modes

are not exception modes, there is no Figure 3.4 shows the format of the 31 N 30 Z 29 C

SPSR available.
and the

CPSR
27

SPSR
7 I

registers. 6 F 5 SBZ 4

28 V

SBZ

Mode

Figure 3.4: Structure of the Processor Status Registers

The processors' status is split into two distinct parts: the User ags and the Systems Control ags. The upper halfword is accessible in User mode and contains a set of ags which can be used to eect the operation of a program, see section 3.3. The lower halfword contains the System Control information. Any bit not currently used is reserved for future use and should be zero, and are marked SBZ in the gure. The

I and F bits indicate if Interrupts ( I) or Fast Interrupts (F) are allowed.

The

Mode

bits indicate which operating mode the processor is in (see 3.1 on page 23). The system ags can only be altered when the processor is in protected mode. User mode programs can not alter the status register except for the condition code ags.

3.3

Flags
The condition code ags are:

The upper four bits of the status register contains a set of four ags, collectively known at the

condition code.

Negative Zero Carry Overow

(N) (Z) (C) (V)

3 As the processor has already fetched the instruction after the current instruction it is required to ush the instruction cache and start again. This will cause a short, but not signicant, delay.

3.4.

EXCEPTIONS

29

The condition code can be used to control the ow of the program execution. abbreviated to just

cc

The is often

The Negative (sign) ag takes on the value of the most signicant bit of a result. Thus when an operation produces a negative result the negative ag is set and a positive result results in a the negative ag being reset. This assumes the values are in standard two's complement form. If the values are unsigned the negative ag can be ignored or used to identify the value of the most signicant bit of the result.

Z C V

The Zero ag is set when an operation produces a zero result. operation produces a non-zero result.

It is reset when an

The Carry ag holds the carry from the most signicant bit produced by arithmetic operations or shifts. As with most processors, the carry ag is inverted after a subtraction so that the ag acts as a borrow ag after a subtraction. The Overow ag is set when an arithmetic result is greater than can be represented in a register.

Many instructions can modify the ags, these include comparison, arithmetic, logical and move instructions. Most of the instructions have an condition code ags or not.

qualier which instructs the processor to set the

3.4

Exceptions

Exceptions are generated by internal and external sources to cause the processor to handle an event, such as an externally generated interrupt or an attempt to execute an undened instruction. The ARM supports seven types of exception, and a provides a privileged processing mode for each type. Table 3.2 lists the type of exception and the processor mode associated with it. When an exception occurs, some of the standard registers are replaced with registers specic to the exception mode. All exception modes have their own Stack Pointer ( The fast interrupt mode has more registers (

R8_q

R12_q )

SP)

and Link (

LR)

registers.

for fast interrupt processing.

Exception Type
Reset Software Interrupt Undened Instruction Prefetch Abort Data Abort Interrupt Fast Interrupt

Processor Mode
Supervisor Supervisor Undened Abort Abort IRQ FIQ

svc svc und abt abt irq q

Table 3.2: Exception processing modes

The seven exceptions are:

Reset

when the Reset pin is held low, this is normally when the system is rst turned on or when

the reset button is pressed.

Software Interrupt

The user program executes a software interrupt ( SWI, A.18 on page 135) instruction with a

is generally used to allow user mode programs to call the operating system.

argument which identies the function the user wishes to preform.

30

CHAPTER 3.

ARM ARCHITECTURE

Undened Instruction

is when an attempt is made to preform an undened instruction. This

normally happens when there is a logical error in the program and the processor starts to execute data rather than program code.

Prefetch Abort Data Abort Interrupt

occurs when the processor attempts to access memory that does not exist. The

occurs when attempting to access a word on a non-word aligned boundary.

lower two bits of a memory must be zero when accessing a word. occurs when an external device asserts the IRQ (interrupt) pin on the processor. This

can be used by external devices to request attention from the processor. An interrupt can not be interrupted with the exception of a fast interrupt.

Fast Interrupt

occurs when an external device asserts the FIQ (fast interrupt) pin.

This is

designed to support data transfer and has sucient private registers to remove the need for register saving in such applications. A fast interrupt can not be interrupted.

When an exception occurs, the processor halts execution after the current instruction. The state of the processor is preserved in the

Saved Processor Status Register (SPSR)

so that the original

program can be resumed when the exception routine has completed. The address of the instruction the processor was just about to execute is placed into the Link Register of the appropriate processor mode. The processor is now ready to begin execution of the exception handler. The exception handler are located a pre-dened locations known as

exception vectors.

It is the

responsibility of an operating system to provide suitable exception handling.

3.5

Instruction Set

Why are a microprocessor's instructions referred to as an instruction set? Because the microprocessor designer selects the instruction complement with great care; it must be easy to execute complex operations as a sequence of simple events, each of which is represented by one instruction from a well-designed instruction set. Assembler often frighten users who are new to programming. Yet taken in isolation, the operations involved in the execution of a single instruction are usually easy to follow. Furthermore, you need not attempt to understand all the instructions at once. As you study each of the programs in these notes you will learn about the specic instructions involved. Table 4.1 lists the instruction mnemonics. This provides a survey of the processors capabilities, and will also be useful when you need a certain kind of operation but are either unsure of the specic mnemonics or not yet familiar with what instructions are available. See Chapter

??

and Appendix

??

for a detailed description of the individual instructions and

chapters 7 through to 15 for a discussion on how to use them. The ARM instruction set can be divided into six broad classes of instruction.

Data Movement Arithmetic Memory Access

Logical and Bit Manipulation Flow Control System Control / Privileged

Before we look at each of these groups in a little more detail there are a few ideas which belong to all groups worthy of investigation.

3.5.

INSTRUCTION SET
Operation Mnemonic Meaning Add with Carry Add Logical AND Unconditional Branch Branch on Condition Bit Clear Unconditional Branch and Link Conditional Branch and Link Compare Exclusive OR Load Multiple Load Register (Word) Load Register (Byte) Multiply Accumulate Move Load SPSR or CPSR Store to SPSR or CPSR Multiply Operation Mnemonic Meaning Logical NOT Logical OR Reverse Subtract Reverse Subtract with Carry Subtract with Carry Mult Accum Signed Long Multiply Signed Long Store Multiple Store Register (Word) Store Register (Byte) Subtract Software Interrupt Swap Word Value Swap Byte Value Test Equivalence Test Mult Accum Unsigned Long Multiply Unsigned Long

31

ADC ADD AND BAL B BIC BLAL BL CMP EOR LDM LDR LDRB MLA MOV MRS MSR MUL

cc

cc

MVN ORR RSB RSC SBC SMLAL SMULL STM STR STRB SUB SWI SWP SWPB TEQ TST UMLAL UMULL

Table 3.3: Instruction Mnemonics

Mnemonic

Condition arry

CS EQ VS GT GE PL HI HS

C S Eq v S G T G Pl Hi H S
et O erow reater igher or

Mnemonic

Condition arry ot

ual (Zero Set) et han

reater Than or us (Positive) gher Than

qual

ame (aka

CS)

CC NE VC LT LE MI LO LS

C C N E v C L T L E Mi Lo L S
lear O erow ess lear han ess Than or ower or ame

qual (Zero Clear)

qual

nus (Negative)

wer Than (aka

CC)

Table 3.4:

cc

(Condition code) Mnemonics

3.5.1 Conditional Execution: cc

Almost all ARM instructions contain a

condition

eld which allows it to be executed conditionally Otherwise, the

dependent on the condition code ags (3.3 on page 28). If the ags indicate that the corresponding condition is true when the instruction starts executing, it executes normally. instruction does nothing. Table 4.2 on page 42 shows a list of the condition codes and their mnemonics. To indicate that an instruction is conditional we simply place the mnemonic for the condition code after the mnemonic for the instruction. If no condition code mnemonic is used the instruction will always be executed. For example the following instruction will move the value of the register only when the Carry ag has been set,

R0

will remain unaected if the

R1

into the

R0

register

ag was clear.

MOVCS
Note that the and

R0, R1
Greater
and the

seance after a comparison ( CMP) instruction, see A.5 on page 129.

Lower

Less

conditions are for use with signed numbers while the

Higher

conditions are for use with unsigned numbers. These condition codes only really make

32

CHAPTER 3.

ARM ARCHITECTURE

Most data-processing instructions can also update the condition codes according to their result. versions of the

Placing an  S after the mnemonic will cause the ags to be updated. For example there are two

MOV MOVS

MOV instruction: R0, #0 Will move the value 0 into the register R0 without setting the ags. R0, #0 Will do the same, move the value 0 into the register R0 , but it will
will be reset and the Carry and oVerow ags will not be eected.

also set

the condition code ags accordingly, the Zero ag will be set, the Negative ag

If an instruction has this ability we denote it using

always comes after the

cc

in our description of the instruction. The

(conditional execution) modication if it is given. Thus the full

description of the move instruction would be:

MOV cc S

Rd , op1

With all this in mind what does the following code fragment do?

MOVS MOVEQS MOVEQ

R0, R1 R0, R2 R0, R3

The rst instruction will move was zero. If the value of the value of

R1

into

R0

unconditionally, but it will also set the

accordingly. Thus the second instruction is only executed if the

R1

and

ags

ag is set, i.e., the value of

R1
to

was not zero the instruction is skipped. If the second instruction is

executed it will copy the value of

R2 .

R2

into

R0

and it will also set the

Thus the third instruction is only executed if both

N and Z ags according R1 and R2 are both zero.

3.5.2 Data Processing Operands: op1

The majority of the instructions relate to data processing of some form. modied before it is used. One of the operands to these instructions is routed through the Barrel Shifter. This means that the operand can be This can be very useful when dealing with lists, tables and other complex data structures. We denote instructions of this type as taking one of its arguments from

op1

An

op1

argument may come from one of two sources, a constant value or a register, and be

modied in ve dierent ways. See Chapter

?? for more detailed information.

Unmodied Value
You can use a value or a register unmodied by simply giving the value or the register name. For example the following instructions will demonstrate the two methods:

MOV MOV

R0, #1234 R0, R1

Will move the immediate constant value Will move the value in the register

123410

into the register

R0

R1

into the register

R0

Logical Shift Left

This will take the value of a register and shift the value up, towards the most signicant bit, by

bits. The number of bits to shift is specied by either a constant value or another register. The lower bits of the value are replaced with a zero. This is a simple way of performing a multiply by a power of 2 (2 ).

3.5.

INSTRUCTION SET

33

MOV MOV

R0, R1, LSL #2 R0, R1, LSL R2

R0 R0

will become the value of

R1

shifted left by 2 bits. The value of

R1

is not changed. will become the value of

specied in the and

R2

R2

register.

R1 shifted left by the number of bits R0 is the only register to change, both R1 C) is the last bit that was shifted out

are not eected by this operation.

If the instruction is to set the status register, the carry ag ( of the value.

Logical Shift Right

Logical Shift Right is very similar to Logical Shift Left except it will shift the value to the right, towards the lest signicant bit, by an ecient unsigned divide by

bits. It will replace the upper bits with zeros, thus providing

2n

function (| 2

|).

The number of bits to shift may be specied

by either a constant value or another register.

MOV MOV

R0, R1, LSR #2 R0, R1, LSR R2

R0

will take on the value of

value of

R1

R1 R2

shifted to the right by 2 bits.

The

is not changed. will become the value of

As before

R0

R1

shifted to the right by the

number of bits specied in the by this operation.

register.

R1

and

R2

are not altered

If the instruction is to set the status register, the carry ag ( the value.

C)

is the last bit to be shifted out of

Arithmetic Shift Right

The Arithmetic Shift Right is rather similar to the Logical Shift Right, but rather than replacing the upper bits with a zero, it maintains the value of the most signicant bit. As the most signicant bit is used to hold the sign, this means the sign of the value is maintained, thus providing a signed divide by

2n

operation (2 ). Register

MOV MOV

R0, R1, ASR #2 R0, R1, ASR R2

R0 R0

will become the value of register

R1

shifted to the right

by 2 bits, with the sign maintained. Register will become the value of the register

right by the number of bits specied by the are not altered by this operation.

R2

R1

shifted to the

register.

R1

and

R2

Given the distinction between the Logical and Arithmetic Shift Right, why is there no Arithmetic Shift Left operation? As a signed number is stored in two's complement the upper most bits hold the sign of the number. These bits can be considered insignicant unless the number is of a sucient size to require their use. Thus an Arithmetic Shift Left is not required as the sign is automatically preserved by the Logical Shift.

Rotate Right
In the Rotate Right operation, the lest signicant bit is copied into the carry ( value of the

C ag is copied into the most signicant bit of the value.

C)

ag, while the

In this way none of the bits

in the value are lost, but are simply moved from the lower bits to the upper bits of the value.

34

CHAPTER 3.

ARM ARCHITECTURE

MOV

R0, R1, ROR #2

This will rotate the value of

R1

by two bits. The most signicant bit

of the resulting value will be the same as the least signicant bit of the original value. The second most signicant bit will be the same as the Carry ag. In the

version the Carry ag will be set to the

second least signicant bit of the original value. The value of not changed by this operation.

R1

is

MOV

R0, R1, ROR R2

Register

R0

will become the value of the register

right by the number of bits specied by the are not altered by this operation. Why is there no corresponding Rotate Left operation?

R2

R1

rotated to the

register.

R1

and

R2

An Add With Carry ( ADC, A.1 on page 127) to a zero value provides this service for a single bit. The designers of the instruction set believe that a Rotate Left by more than one bit would never be required, thus they have not provided a ROL function.

Rotate Right Extended

This is similar to a Rotate Right by one bit. The moves the value of the Carry (

C)

extended

section of the fact that this function

ag into the most signicant bit of the value, and the least

signicant bit of the value into the Carry (

C) ag.

Thus it allows the Carry ag to be propagated

though multi-word values, thereby allowing values larger than 32-bits to be used in calculations.

MOV

R0, R1 RRX

The register

R0

become the same as the value of the register

R1

rotated

though the carry ag by one bit. same as the least signicant bit or

The most signicant bit of the value The value of

becomes the same as the current Carry ag, while the Carry ag will be the

R1 .

R1

will not be changed.

3.5.3 Memory Access Operands: op2

The memory address used in the memory access instructions may also modied by the barrel shifter. This provides for more advanced access to memory which is particularly useful when dealing with more advanced data structures. It allows pre- and post-increment instructions that update memory pointers as a side eect of the instruction. This makes loops which pass though memory more ecient. We denote instructions of this type as taking one of its arguments from

op2

page

??.

. For a full discussion of the

op2

addressing mode we refer the reader to Chapter

??

on

There are three main methods of specifying a memory address (

op2

), all of which include an

oset value of some form. This oset can be specied in one of three ways:

Constant Value
An immediate constant value can be provided. If no oset is specied an immediate constant value of zero is assumed.

Register
The oset can be specied by another register. The value of the register is added to the address held in another register to form the nal address.

Scaled
The oset is specied by another register which can be scaled by one of the shift operators used for

op1

. More specically by the Logical Shift Left (

Arithmetic Shift Right (

ASR),

ROtate Right (

ROR)

or Rotate Right Extended (

LSL), Logical Shift Right (LSR), RRX) shift

operators, where the number of bits to shift is specied as a constant value.

3.5.

INSTRUCTION SET

35

Oset Addressing
oset addressing

In

the memory address is formed by adding (or subtracting) an oset to or from

the value held in a base register.

LDR

R0, [R1]

Will load the register

R0

with the 32-bit word at the memory

address held in the register

R1 .

In this instruction there is no

oset specied, so an oset of zero is assumed. The value of

R1
LDR R0, [R1, #4]

is not changed in this instruction.

Will load the register

R0

with the word at the memory ad-

dress calculated by adding the constant value 4 to the memory address contained in the

R1

register.

The register

R1

is not

changed by this instruction.

LDR

R0, [R1, R2]

Loads the register

R0

with the value at the memory address Both

calculated by adding the value in the register held in the register this operation.

R2 .

R1

and

R2

R1

to the value

are not altered by

LDR

R0, [R1, R2, LSL #2]

Will load the register

R0

with the 32-bit value at the memory

address calculated by adding the value in the value obtained by shifting the value in registers,

R1

and

R2

R2

R1

register to the

left by 2 bits. Both

are not eected by this operation.

This is particularly useful for indexing into a complex data structure. structure is held in a

base

register,

R1

The start of the data

in this case, and the oset to access a particular eld within

the structure is then added to the base address. Placing the oset in a register allows it to be calculated at run time rather than xed. This allows for looping though a table.

A scaled value can also be used to access a particular item of a table, where the size of the item is a power of two. For example, to locate item 7 in a table of 32-bit values we need only shift the index value 6 left by 2 bits ( 6 of the table held in a register, is

22 )

R1

to calculate the value we need to add as an oset to the start

in our example. Remember that the computer count from zero,

thus we use an index value of 6 rather than 7. A 32-bit number requires 4 bytes of storage which

22 ,

thus we only need a 2-bit left shift.

Pre-Index Addressing
pre-index addressing

In

the memory address if formed in the same way as for oset addressing.

The address is not only used to access memory, but the base register is also modied to hold the new value. In the ARM system this is known as a exclamation mark after at the end of the

op2

write-back

and is denoted by placing a

code.

Pre-Index address can be particularly useful in a loop as it can be used to automatically increment or decrement a counter or memory pointer.

36

CHAPTER 3.

ARM ARCHITECTURE

LDR

R0, [R1, #4]!

Will load the register

R0

with the word at the memory address register. The new memory address

calculated by adding the constant value 4 to the memory address contained in the

R1

is placed back into the base register, register

R1 .

LDR

R0, [R1, R2]!

Loads the register held in the register

R0

with the value at the memory address The oset register,

calculated by adding the value in the register

R2 .

by this operation, the register holding the is modied to hold the new address.

R1 to the value R2 , is not altered base address, R1 ,

LDR

R0, [R1, R2, LSL #2]!

First calculates the new address by adding the value in the base address register,

R1 ,

to the value obtained by shifting

the value in the oset register,

R2 ,

left by 2 bits. It will then

load the 32-bit at this address into the destination register, The new address is also written back into the base register, The oset register,

R2 ,

R0 . R1 .

will not be eected by this operation.

Post-Index Addressing
In

post-index address

the memory address is the base register value.

As a side-eect, an oset

is added to or subtracted from the base register value and the result is written back to the base register. Post-index addressing uses the value of the base register without modication. It then applies the modication to the address and writes the new address back into the base register. This can be used to automatically increment or decrement a memory pointer after it has been used, so it is pointing to the next location to be used. As the instruction must preform a write-back we do not need to include an exclamation mark. Rather we move the closing bracket to include only the base register, as that is the register holding the memory address we are going to access.

LDR

R0, [R1], #4

Will load the register new value of value of

R0

with the word at the memory address

contained in the base register,

R1 .

R1

R1 .

It will then calculate the

by adding the constant value 4 to the current

LDR

R0, [R1], R2

Loads the register

R0

with the value at the memory address

held in the base register, register,

R1 .

It will then calculate the new The

value for the base register by adding the value in the oset

R2 ,

to the current value of the base register.

oset register,

R2 ,

is not altered by this operation.

LDR

R0, [R1], R2, LSL #2

First loads the 32-bit value at the memory address contained in the base register,

R1 ,

into the destination register,

R0 .

It will

then calculate the new value for the base register by adding the current value to the value obtained by shifting the value in the oset register,

R2 ,

left by 2 bits. The oset register,

R2 ,

will

not be eected by this operation.

Instruction Set

Why are a microprocessor's instructions referred to as an instruction set? Because the microprocessor designer selects the instruction complement with great care; it must be easy to execute complex operations as a sequence of simple events, each of which is represented by one instruction from a well-designed instruction set. Assembler often frighten users who are new to programming. Yet taken in isolation, the operations involved in the execution of a single instruction are usually easy to follow. Furthermore, you need not attempt to understand all the instructions at once. As you study each of the programs in these notes you will learn about the specic instructions involved. Table 4.1 lists the instruction mnemonics. This provides a survey of the processors capabilities, and will also be useful when you need a certain kind of operation but are either unsure of the specic mnemonics or not yet familiar with what instructions are available. The appendix A gives a detailed description of the individual instructions while chapters 7 through to 15 provide a discussion on how to use them. The ARM instruction set can be divided into six broad classes of instruction.

Data Movement Arithmetic Memory Access

Logical and Bit Manipulation Flow Control System Control / Privileged

Before we look at each of these groups in a little more detail there are a few ideas which belong to all groups worthy of investigation.

Important Note:

The ARM instruction set can be divided into six broad classes of instruction:

Data-processing instructions (Data Movement) Branch instructions (Flow Control) Status register transfer instructions (Logic/Bit Bashing) Load and store instructions (Memory Access) Coprocessor instructions (System Control) Exception-generating instructions (Privileged)

37

38

CHAPTER 4.
Operation Mnemonic Meaning Add with Carry Add Logical AND Unconditional Branch Branch on Condition Bit Clear Unconditional Branch and Link Conditional Branch and Link Compare Exclusive OR Load Multiple Load Register (Word) Load Register (Byte) Multiply Accumulate Move Load SPSR or CPSR Store to SPSR or CPSR Multiply Operation Mnemonic Meaning

INSTRUCTION SET

ADC ADD AND BAL B BIC BLAL BL CMP EOR LDM LDR LDRB MLA MOV MRS MSR MUL

cc

cc

MVN ORR RSB RSC SBC SMLAL SMULL STM STR STRB SUB SWI SWP SWPB TEQ TST UMLAL UMULL

Logical NOT Logical OR Reverse Subtract Reverse Subtract with Carry Subtract with Carry Mult Accum Signed Long Multiply Signed Long Store Multiple Store Register (Word) Store Register (Byte) Subtract Software Interrupt Swap Word Value Swap Byte Value Test Equivalence Test Mult Accum Unsigned Long Multiply Unsigned Long

Table 4.1: Instruction Mnemonics

4.0.4 Branch instructions

As well as allowing many data-processing or load instructions to change control ow by writing the PC, a standard Branch instruction is provided with a 24-bit signed oset, allowing forward and backward branches of up to 32MB. There is a Branch and Link (BL) option that also preserves the address of the instruction after the branch in R14, the LR. This provides a subroutine call which can be returned from by copying the LR into the PC.

4.0.5 Data-processing instructions

The data-processing instructions perform calculations on the general-purpose registers. There are four types of data-processing instructions:

Arithmetic/logic instructions Comparison instructions Multiply instructions Count Leading Zeros instruction

Arithmetic/logic instructions
There are twelve arithmetic/logic instructions which share a common instruction format. These perform an arithmetic or logical operation on up to two source operands, and write the result to a destination register. They can also optionally update the condition code ags based on the result. Of the two source operands:

one is always a register

39

the other has two basic forms:

 

an immediate value a register value, optionally shifted.

If the operand is a shifted register, the shift amount can be either an immediate value or the value of another register. Four types of shift can be specied. Every arithmetic/logic instruction can therefore perform an arithmetic/logic and a shift operation. As a result, ARM does not have dedicated shift instructions. Because the instructions.

Program Counter

(PC) is a general-purpose register, arithmetic/logic instructions

can write their results directly to the PC. This allows easy implementation of a variety of jump

Comparison instructions
There are four comparison instructions which use the same instruction format as the arithmetic/logic instructions. These perform an arithmetic or logical operation on two source operands, but do not write the result to a register. They always update the condition ags based on the result. The source operands of comparison instructions take the same forms as those of arithmetic/logic instructions, including the ability to incorporate a shift operation.

Multiply instructions
Multiply instructions come in two classes. Both types multiply two 32-bit register values and store their result:

32-bit result 64-bit result

Normal. Stores the 32-bit result in a register. Long. Stores the 64-bit result in two separate registers.

Both types of multiply instruction can optionally perform an accumulate operation.

Count Leading Zeros instruction

The Count Leading Zeros (CLZ) instruction determines the number of zero bits at the most signicant end of a register value, up to the rst 1 bit. This number is written to the destination register of the CLZ instruction.

4.0.6 Status register transfer instructions

The status register transfer instructions transfer the contents of the CPSR or an SPSR to or from a general-purpose register. Writing to the CPSR can:

set the values of the condition code ags set the values of the interrupt enable bits set the processor mode

40

CHAPTER 4.

INSTRUCTION SET

4.0.7 Load and store instructions

The following load and store instructions are available:

Load and Store Register Load and Store Multiple registers Swap register and memory contents

Load and Store Register

Load Register instructions can load a 32-bit word, a 16-bit halfword or an 8-bit byte from memory into a register. Byte and halfword loads can be automatically zero-extended or sign-extended as they are loaded. Store Register instructions can store a 32-bit word, a 16-bit halfword or an 8-bit byte from a register to memory. Load and Store Register instructions have three primary addressing modes, all of which use a and an

register

oset

base

specied by the instruction:

In

oset addressing,

the memory address is formed by adding or subtracting an oset to or

from the base register value. In

pre-indexed addressing , post-indexed addressing ,

the memory address is formed in the same way as for oset

addressing. As a side-eect, the memory address is also written back to the base register. In the memory address is the base register value. As a side-eect,

an oset is added to or subtracted from the base register value and the result is written back to the base register.

In each case, the oset can be either an immediate or the value of an osets can also be scaled with shift operations.

index register.

Register-based

As the PC is a general-purpose register, a 32-bit value can be loaded directly into the PC to perform a jump to any address in the 4GB memory space.

Load and Store Multiple registers

Load Multiple (LDM) and Store Multiple (STM) instructions perform a block transfer of any number of the general-purpose registers to or from memory. Four addressing modes are provided:

pre-increment post-increment pre-decrement post-decrement

The base address is specied by a register value, which can be optionally updated after the transfer. As the subroutine return address and PC values are in general-purpose registers, very ecient subroutine entry and exit sequences can be constructed with

LDM

and

STM:

41

A single

STM instruction at subroutine entry can push register contents and the return address LDM instruction at subroutine exit can restore register contents from the stack, load

onto the stack, updating the stack pointer in the process. A single

the PC with the return address, and update the stack pointer.

LDM and STM instructions also allow very ecient code for block copies and similar data movement
algorithms.

Swap register and memory contents

A swap (SWP) instruction performs the following sequence of operations:

1. It loads a value from a register-specied memory location. 2. It stores the contents of a register to the same memory location. 3. It writes the value loaded in step 1 to a register.

By specifying the same register for steps 2 and 3, the contents of a memory location and a register are interchanged. The swap operation performs a special indivisible bus operation that allows atomic update of semaphores. Both 32-bit word and 8-bit byte semaphores are supported.

4.0.8 Coprocessor instructions

There are three types of coprocessor instructions:

Data-processing instructions Data transfer instructions

These start a coprocessor-specic internal operation.

These transfer coprocessor data to or from memory. The address

of the transfer is calculated by the ARM processor.

Register transfer instructions

ARM register.

These allow a coprocessor value to be transferred to or from an

4.0.9 Exception-generating instructions

Two types of instruction are designed to cause specic exceptions to occur.

Software interrupt instructions SWI

instructions cause a software interrupt exception to oc-

cur. These are normally used to make calls to an operating system, to request an OS-dened service. The exception entry caused by a in ways permitted by the OS.

SWI instruction also changes to a privileged proces-

sor mode. This allows an unprivileged task to gain access to privileged functions, but only

Software breakpoint instructions BKPT

instead treat a from occurring.

instructions cause an abort exception to occur.

If

suitable debugger software is installed on the abort vector, an abort exception generated in this fashion is treated as a breakpoint. If debug hardware is present in the system, it can

BKPT

instruction directly as a breakpoint, preventing the abort exception

42

CHAPTER 4.
Mnemonic Condition arry

INSTRUCTION SET

CS EQ VS GT GE PL HI HS

C S Eq v S G T G Pl Hi H S
et O erow reater igher or

Mnemonic

Condition arry ot

ual (Zero Set) et han

reater Than or us (Positive) gher Than

qual

ame (aka

CS)

CC NE VC LT LE MI LO LS

C C N E v C L T L E Mi Lo L S
lear O erow ess lear han ess Than or ower or ame

qual (Zero Clear)

qual

nus (Negative)

wer Than (aka

CC)

Table 4.2:

cc

(Condition code) Mnemonics

In addition to the above, the following types of instruction cause an Undened Instruction exception to occur:

coprocessor instructions which are not recognized by any hardware coprocessor most instruction words that have not yet been allocated a meaning as an ARM instruction.

In each case, this exception is normally used either to generate a suitable error or to initiate software emulation of the instruction.

4.0.10 Conditional Execution: cc

Almost all ARM instructions contain a

condition

eld which allows it to be executed conditionally Otherwise, the

dependent on the condition code ags (3.3 on page 28). If the ags indicate that the corresponding condition is true when the instruction starts executing, it executes normally. instruction does nothing. Table 4.2 shows a list of the condition codes and their mnemonics. To indicate that an instruction is conditional we simply place the mnemonic for the condition code after the mnemonic for the instruction. If no condition code mnemonic is used the instruction will always be executed. For example the following instruction will move the value of the register only when the Carry ag has been set,

R0

will remain unaected if the

R1

into the

R0

register

ag was clear.

MOVCS
Note that the and

R0, R1
Greater
and the

seance after a comparison ( CMP) instruction, see A.5 on page 129.

Lower

Less

conditions are for use with signed numbers while the

Higher

conditions are for use with unsigned numbers. These condition codes only really make

Most data-processing instructions can also update the condition codes according to their result. versions of the

Placing an  S after the mnemonic will cause the ags to be updated. For example there are two

MOV

instruction: Will move the value 0 into the register

MOV MOVS

R0, #0 R0, #0

R0

without setting the ags.

Will do the same, move the value 0 into the register

R0 ,

but it will also set

the condition code ags accordingly, the Zero ag will be set, the Negative ag will be reset and the Carry and oVerow ags will not be eected. If an instruction has this ability we denote it using

always comes after the

cc

in our description of the instruction. The

(conditional execution) modication if it is given. Thus the full

description of the move instruction would be:

43

MOV cc S

Rd , op1

With all this in mind what does the following code fragment do?

MOVS MOVEQS MOVEQ

R0, R1 R0, R2 R0, R3

The rst instruction will move was zero. If the value of the value of

R1

into

R0

unconditionally, but it will also set the

accordingly. Thus the second instruction is only executed if the

R1

and

ags

ag is set, i.e., the value of

R1
to

was not zero the instruction is skipped. If the second instruction is

executed it will copy the value of

R2 .

R2

into

R0

and it will also set the

Thus the third instruction is only executed if both

N and Z ags according R1 and R2 are both zero.

44

CHAPTER 4.

INSTRUCTION SET

5
5.1

Addressing Modes

Data Processing Operands:

op1
One of the operands

The majority of the instructions relate to data processing of some form. modied before it is used.

to these instructions is routed through the Barrel Shifter. This means that the operand can be This can be very useful when dealing with lists, tables and other complex data structures. We denote instructions of this type as taking one of its arguments from

op1

An

op1

argument may come from one of two sources, a constant value or a register, and be

modied in ve dierent ways. See Chapter

?? for more detailed information.

5.1.1 Unmodied Value

You can use a value or a register unmodied by simply giving the value or the register name. For example the following instructions will demonstrate the two methods:

MOV MOV

R0, #1234 R0, R1

Will move the immediate constant value Will move the value in the register

123410

into the register

R0

R1

into the register

R0

5.1.2 Logical Shift Left

This will take the value of a register and shift the value up, towards the most signicant bit, by

bits. The number of bits to shift is specied by either a constant value or another register. The lower bits of the value are replaced with a zero. This is a simple way of performing a multiply by a power of 2 (2 ).

MOV MOV

R0, R1, LSL #2 R0, R1, LSL R2

R0 R0

will become the value of

R1

shifted left by 2 bits. The value of

R1

is not changed. will become the value of

specied in the and

R2

R2

register.

R1 shifted left by the number of bits R0 is the only register to change, both R1 C) is the last bit that was shifted out

are not eected by this operation.

If the instruction is to set the status register, the carry ag ( of the value.

45

46

CHAPTER 5.

ADDRESSING MODES

5.1.3 Logical Shift Right

Logical Shift Right is very similar to Logical Shift Left except it will shift the value to the right, towards the lest signicant bit, by an ecient unsigned divide by

bits. It will replace the upper bits with zeros, thus providing

2n

function (| 2

|).

The number of bits to shift may be specied

by either a constant value or another register.

MOV MOV

R0, R1, LSR #2 R0, R1, LSR R2

R0

will take on the value of

value of

R1

R1 R2

shifted to the right by 2 bits.

The

is not changed. will become the value of

As before

R0

R1

shifted to the right by the

number of bits specied in the by this operation.

register.

R1

and

R2

are not altered

If the instruction is to set the status register, the carry ag ( the value.

C)

is the last bit to be shifted out of

5.1.4 Arithmetic Shift Right

The Arithmetic Shift Right is rather similar to the Logical Shift Right, but rather than replacing the upper bits with a zero, it maintains the value of the most signicant bit. As the most signicant bit is used to hold the sign, this means the sign of the value is maintained, thus providing a signed divide by

2n

operation (2 ). Register

MOV MOV

R0, R1, ASR #2 R0, R1, ASR R2

R0 R0

will become the value of register

R1

shifted to the right

by 2 bits, with the sign maintained. Register will become the value of the register

right by the number of bits specied by the are not altered by this operation.

R2

R1

shifted to the

register.

R1

and

R2

Given the distinction between the Logical and Arithmetic Shift Right, why is there no Arithmetic Shift Left operation? As a signed number is stored in two's complement the upper most bits hold the sign of the number. These bits can be considered insignicant unless the number is of a sucient size to require their use. Thus an Arithmetic Shift Left is not required as the sign is automatically preserved by the Logical Shift.

5.1.5 Rotate Right

In the Rotate Right operation, the lest signicant bit is copied into the carry ( value of the

C ag is copied into the most signicant bit of the value.

C)

ag, while the

In this way none of the bits

in the value are lost, but are simply moved from the lower bits to the upper bits of the value.

5.2.

MEMORY ACCESS OPERANDS:

OP2

47

MOV

R0, R1, ROR #2

This will rotate the value of

R1

by two bits. The most signicant bit

of the resulting value will be the same as the least signicant bit of the original value. The second most signicant bit will be the same as the Carry ag. In the

version the Carry ag will be set to the

second least signicant bit of the original value. The value of not changed by this operation.

R1

is

MOV

R0, R1, ROR R2

Register

R0

will become the value of the register

right by the number of bits specied by the are not altered by this operation. Why is there no corresponding Rotate Left operation?

R2

R1

rotated to the

register.

R1

and

R2

An Add With Carry ( ADC, A.1 on page 127) to a zero value provides this service for a single bit. The designers of the instruction set believe that a Rotate Left by more than one bit would never be required, thus they have not provided a ROL function.

5.1.6 Rotate Right Extended

This is similar to a Rotate Right by one bit. The moves the value of the Carry (

C)

extended

section of the fact that this function

ag into the most signicant bit of the value, and the least

signicant bit of the value into the Carry (

C) ag.

Thus it allows the Carry ag to be propagated

though multi-word values, thereby allowing values larger than 32-bits to be used in calculations.

MOV

R0, R1 RRX

The register

R0

become the same as the value of the register

R1

rotated

though the carry ag by one bit. same as the least signicant bit or

The most signicant bit of the value The value of

becomes the same as the current Carry ag, while the Carry ag will be the

R1 .

R1

will not be changed.

5.2

Memory Access Operands:

op2

The memory address used in the memory access instructions may also modied by the barrel shifter. This provides for more advanced access to memory which is particularly useful when dealing with more advanced data structures. It allows pre- and post-increment instructions that update memory pointers as a side eect of the instruction. This makes loops which pass though memory more ecient. We denote instructions of this type as taking one of its arguments from

op2

page

??.

. For a full discussion of the

op2

addressing mode we refer the reader to Chapter

??

on

There are three main methods of specifying a memory address (

op2

), all of which include an

oset value of some form. This oset can be specied in one of three ways:

Constant Value
An immediate constant value can be provided. If no oset is specied an immediate constant value of zero is assumed.

Register
The oset can be specied by another register. The value of the register is added to the address held in another register to form the nal address.

48

CHAPTER 5.

ADDRESSING MODES

Scaled
The oset is specied by another register which can be scaled by one of the shift operators used for

op1

. More specically by the Logical Shift Left (

Arithmetic Shift Right (

ASR),

ROtate Right (

ROR)

or Rotate Right Extended (

LSL), Logical Shift Right (LSR), RRX) shift

operators, where the number of bits to shift is specied as a constant value.

5.2.1 Oset Addressing

In

oset addressing

the memory address is formed by adding (or subtracting) an oset to or from

the value held in a base register.

LDR

R0, [R1]

Will load the register

R0

with the 32-bit word at the memory

address held in the register

R1 .

In this instruction there is no

oset specied, so an oset of zero is assumed. The value of

R1
LDR R0, [R1, #4]

is not changed in this instruction.

Will load the register

R0

with the word at the memory ad-

dress calculated by adding the constant value 4 to the memory address contained in the

R1

register.

The register

R1

is not

changed by this instruction.

LDR

R0, [R1, R2]

Loads the register

R0

with the value at the memory address Both

calculated by adding the value in the register held in the register this operation.

R2 .

R1

and

R2

R1

to the value

are not altered by

LDR

R0, [R1, R2, LSL #2]

Will load the register

R0

with the 32-bit value at the memory

address calculated by adding the value in the value obtained by shifting the value in registers,

R1

and

R2

R2

R1

register to the

left by 2 bits. Both

are not eected by this operation. The start of the data

This is particularly useful for indexing into a complex data structure. structure is held in a

base

register,

R1

in this case, and the oset to access a particular eld within

the structure is then added to the base address. Placing the oset in a register allows it to be calculated at run time rather than xed. This allows for looping though a table. A scaled value can also be used to access a particular item of a table, where the size of the item is a power of two. For example, to locate item 7 in a table of 32-bit values we need only shift the index value 6 left by 2 bits ( 6 of the table held in a register, is

22 )

R1

to calculate the value we need to add as an oset to the start

in our example. Remember that the computer count from zero,

thus we use an index value of 6 rather than 7. A 32-bit number requires 4 bytes of storage which

22 ,

thus we only need a 2-bit left shift.

5.2.

MEMORY ACCESS OPERANDS:

OP2

49

5.2.2 Pre-Index Addressing

In

pre-index addressing

the memory address if formed in the same way as for oset addressing.

The address is not only used to access memory, but the base register is also modied to hold the new value. In the ARM system this is known as a exclamation mark after at the end of the

op2

write-back

and is denoted by placing a

code.

Pre-Index address can be particularly useful in a loop as it can be used to automatically increment or decrement a counter or memory pointer.

LDR

R0, [R1, #4]!

Will load the register

R0

with the word at the memory address register. The new memory address

calculated by adding the constant value 4 to the memory address contained in the

R1

is placed back into the base register, register

R1 .

LDR

R0, [R1, R2]!

Loads the register held in the register

R0

with the value at the memory address The oset register,

calculated by adding the value in the register

R2 .

by this operation, the register holding the is modied to hold the new address.

R1 to the value R2 , is not altered base address, R1 ,

LDR

R0, [R1, R2, LSL #2]!

First calculates the new address by adding the value in the base address register,

R1 ,

to the value obtained by shifting

the value in the oset register,

R2 ,

left by 2 bits. It will then

load the 32-bit at this address into the destination register, The new address is also written back into the base register, The oset register,

R2 ,

R0 . R1 .

will not be eected by this operation.

5.2.3 Post-Index Addressing

In

post-index address

the memory address is the base register value.

As a side-eect, an oset

is added to or subtracted from the base register value and the result is written back to the base register. Post-index addressing uses the value of the base register without modication. It then applies the modication to the address and writes the new address back into the base register. This can be used to automatically increment or decrement a memory pointer after it has been used, so it is pointing to the next location to be used.

50

CHAPTER 5.

ADDRESSING MODES

As the instruction must preform a write-back we do not need to include an exclamation mark. Rather we move the closing bracket to include only the base register, as that is the register holding the memory address we are going to access.

LDR

R0, [R1], #4

Will load the register new value of value of

R0

with the word at the memory address

contained in the base register,

R1 .

R1

R1 .

It will then calculate the

by adding the constant value 4 to the current

LDR

R0, [R1], R2

Loads the register

R0

with the value at the memory address

held in the base register, register,

R1 .

It will then calculate the new The

value for the base register by adding the value in the oset

R2 ,

to the current value of the base register.

oset register,

R2 ,

is not altered by this operation.

LDR

R0, [R1], R2, LSL #2

First loads the 32-bit value at the memory address contained in the base register,

R1 ,

into the destination register,

R0 .

It will

then calculate the new value for the base register by adding the current value to the value obtained by shifting the value in the oset register,

R2 ,

left by 2 bits. The oset register,

R2 ,

will

not be eected by this operation.

Programs

The only way to learn assembly language programming is through experience. Throughout the rest of this book each chapter will introduce various aspects of assembly programming. The chapter will start with a general discussion, then move on to a number of example programs which will demonstrate the topic under discussion. problems for you to try. The chapter will end with a number of programming

6.1

Example Programs

Each of the program examples contains several parts:

Title Purpose Problem Algorithm Source code Notes

that describes the general problem statement of purpose that describes the task the program performs and the memory locations used. A sample problem complete with data and results. if the program logic is complex. for the assembly program. Explanatry notes that discusses the instructions and methods used in the program.

Each example is written and assembled as a stand-alone program. They can be downloaded from the web site .

6.1.1 Program Listing Format

The examples in the book are the actual source code used to generate the programs. Sometimes you may need to use the listing output of the

ARM assembler (the .list le), and in any case you

.list
listing le.

should be aware of the fact that you can generate a listing le. See the section on the ARMulator environment which follows for details of how to generate a

6.1.2 Guidelines for Examples

We have used the following guidelines in construction of the examples:

1. Standard ARM assembler notation is used, as summarized in Chapter 2. 2. The forms in which data and addresses appear are selected for clarity rather than for consistency. We use hexadecimal numbers for memory addresses, instruction codes, and BCD data; decimal for numeric constants; binary for logical masks; and ASCII for characters.

1 http://dec.bournemouth.ac.uk/support/sem/sysarch/examples.zip
51

52

CHAPTER 6.
3. Frequently used instructions and programming techniques are emphasized.

PROGRAMS

4. Examples illustrate tasks that microprocessors perform in communication, instrumentation, computers, business equipment, industrial, and military applications. 5. Detailed comments are included. 6. Simple and clear structures are emphasised, but programs are written as eciently as possible within this guideline. Notes accompanying programs often describe more ecient procedures. 7. Program are written as an independent procedures or subroutines although no assumptions are made concerning the state of the microprocessor on entry to the procedure. 8. Program end with a this by replacing the

SWI &11 SWI &11

(Software Interrupt) instruction. You may prefer to modify instruction with an endless loop instruction such as:

HERE

BAL

HERE

9. Programs use standard ARM assembler directives. We introduced assembler directives conceptually in Chapter 2. When rst examining programming examples, you can ignore the assembler directives if you do not understand them. Assembler directives do not contribute to program logic, which is what you will be trying to understand initially; but they are a necessary part of every assembly language program, so you will have to learn how to use them before you write any executable programs. Including assembler directives in all program examples will help you become familiar with the functions they perform.

6.2

Trying the examples

To test one of the example programs, rst obtain a copy of the source code. The best way of doing this is to type in the source code presented in this book, as this will help you to understand the code. Alternatively you can download the source from the web site, although you won't gain the same knowledge of the code. Go to the start menu and call up the Armulate program. Next open the source le using the normal File | Open menu option. within the Armulate environment. The next step is to create a new Project within the environment. Select the Project menu option, then New. Give your project the same name as the source le that you are using (there is no need to use a le extension  it will automatically be saved as a This will open your program source in a separate window

.apj

le).

Once you have given the le a name, a further dialog will open as shown in the gure 6.1 on the next page. Click the Add button, and you will again be presented with a le dialog, which will display the source les in the current directory. Select the relevant source le and OK the dialog. You will be returned to the previous dialog, but you will see now that your source le is included in the project. OK the Edit Project dialog, and you will be returned to the Armulate environment, now with two windows open within it, one for the source code and one for the project. We recommend that you always create a

.list

listing le for each project that you create. Do

this by selecting the Options menu with the project window in focus, then the Assembler item. This will open the dialog shown in gure 6.2 on the facing page. Enter

-list [yourfilename].list

into the Other text box and OK the dialog.

You have now created your project and are ready to assemble and debug your code. Additional information on the Armulator is available via the help menu item.

6.3.

TRYING THE EXAMPLES FROM THE COMMAND LINE

53

Figure 6.1: New Project Dialog

Figure 6.2: Assembler Options Dialog

6.3

Trying the examples from the command line

The Armulate

When developing the example programs, we found the Armulate environment too clumsy. We used the TextPad editor and assembled the programs from the command line. environment provides commands for use from the command line:

1. Assembler The command line assembler is used to create an object le from the program source code. During the development of the add program (program 7.3a) we used the command line:

ARMASM -LI -CPU ARM6 -g -list add.list add.s

2. Linker It is necessary to position the program at a xed location in memory. This is done using the linker. In our add example we used the command:

ARMLINK -o add add.o

Which resolves the relative addresses in the 3. Debugger Finally it is necessary to debug the load image. This can be done in one of two ways, using a command line debugger or the windows debugger. In either case they require a load image the following command is used: (add in our example). To use the command line debugger (known as the source debugger)

add.o

le, producing the

add

load image.

ARMSD add
However, the command driven nature of this system is confusing and hard to use for even the most experienced of developers. Thus we suggest you use the windows based debugger program:

54

CHAPTER 6.

PROGRAMS

WINDBG add
Which will provide you with the same debugger you would have seen had you used the Window based Armulate environment.

6.3.1 Setting up TextPad

To set up this environment simply download the TextPad editor and the ARM Assembler syntax le. You can download the editor from the download page of the TextPad web site . Download Derek Law's ARM Assembler Syntax Denition le from the TextPad web site. You can nd this under the Unpack the

Syntax Denition sub-section of the Add-ons section of the Download armasm.syn from the arm.zip le into the TextPad Samples directory.

page.

Having installed the Syntax Denitions you should now add a new Document Class to TextPad. Run TextPad and select the

New Document Class. . .

wizard from the

Congure menu.

The wizard

will now take you though the following steps: 1. The Document Class requires a name. We have used the name  ARM

Assembler .
We

2. The Class Members, the le name extension to associate with this document class. associate all

.s

and

.list

les with this class:  *.s,*.list

3. Syntax Highlighting. The next dialog is where we tell TextPad to use syntax highlighting, simply check the Enable Syntax Highlighting box. denition le to use. If the

armasm.syn

We now need to tell it which syntax

le was placed in the

Samples

directory, this will

appear in the drop down list, and should be selected.

While this will create the new document class, you will almost certainly want to change the colour settings for this document class. This class uses the dierent levels of Keyword colouring for dierent aspects of the syntax as follows:

Keywords Keywords Keywords Keywords Keywords Keywords

1 2 3 4 5 6

Instructions Co-processor and pseudo-instructions Shift-addresses and logical directives Registers Directives Arguments and built-in names

You will probably want to set the color ( sic ) setting for all of these types to the same settings. We have set all but Keywords 2 to the same colour scheme. To alter the color setting you should select the

Preferences. . .

option from the

Congure

menu.

In the Preference dialog (shown in gure 6.4 on the next page), open the section and then your new document class (

ARM Assembler ).

Now you should select the

Document Classes colors

This

section. This will now allow you to change the colours for any of the given color settings. Finally you may like to consider adding a File Type Filter to the Open File dialog. can be done by selecting the

New button, add the description (ARM Assembler (*.s, *.list)) and wildcard (*.s;*.list) details. Finally click on the OK button.
(without spaces) in the wildcard entry.

File Type Filter

entry in the

Preference

dialog. Simply click on the

Note the use of a comma to seperate the wildcards in the description, and the use of a semi-colon

2 http://www.textpad.com

6.4.

PROGRAM INITIALIZATION

55

Figure 6.3: TextPad Colour Preferences Dialog

Figure 6.4: TextPad File Name Filters Preferences Dialog

6.4

Program Initialization
Often this requires additional instructions that may

All of the programming examples presented in these notes pay particular attention to the correct initialization of constants and operands. appear superuous, in that they do not contribute directly to the solution of the stated problem. Nevertheless, correct initialization is important in order to ensure the proper execution of the program every time. We want to stress correct initialization; that is why we are going to emphasize this aspect of problems.

6.5

Special Conditions

For the same reasons that we pay particular attention to special conditions that can cause a program to fail. Empty lists and zero indexes are two of the most common circumstances overlooked in sample problems. It is critically important when using microprocessors that you learn with your very rst program to anticipate unusual circumstances; they frequently cause your program to fail. You must build in the necessary programming steps to account for these potential problems.

6.6

Problems
You should use the

Each chapter will now end with a number of programming problems for your to try. They have been provided to help you understand the ideas presented in the chapter.

56

CHAPTER 6.

PROGRAMS

programming examples as guidelines for solving the problems. Don't forget to run your solutions on the ARMulator to ensure that they are correct. The following guidelines will help in solving the problems:

1. Comment each program so that others can understand it. The comments can be brief and ungrammatical. They should explain the purpose of a section or instruction in the program, but should not describe the operation of instructions, that description is available in manuals. For example the following line:

ADD

R1, R1, #1
why
the line is there. They tell us

could be given the comment Add one to R1 or Increment R1, both of which provide no indication as to

what

the instruction is doing, but we can

tell that by looking at the instruction itself. We are more interested in why the instruction is there. A comment such as Increment loop counter is much more useful as it explains why you are adding one to

R1 ,

the loop counter.

You do not have to comment each statement or explain the obvious. You may follow the format of the examples but provide less detail. 2. Emphasise clarity, simplicity, and good structure in programs. While programs should be reasonably ecient, do not worry about saving a single byte of program memory or a few microseconds. 3. Make programs reasonably general. Do not confuse parameters (such as the number of

elements in any array) with xed constants (such as the code for the letter C). 4. Never assume xed initial values for parameters. 5. Use assembler notation as shown in the examples and dened in Chapter 2. 6. Use symbolic notation for address and data references. used even for constants (such as possible form for data (such as Symbolic notation should also be Also use the clearest

DATA_SELECT instead of 2_00000100). 'C' instead of 0x43). SUM

or

7. Use meaningful names for labels and variables, e.g., 8. Execute each program with the emulator. program is correct. program works for special cases.

CHECK

rather than

or

Z.

There is no other way of ensuring that your Be sure that the

We have provided sample data with each problem.

Data Movement

This chapter contains some very elementary programs.

They will introduce some fundamental

features of the ARM. In addition, these programs demonstrate some primitive tasks that are common to assembly language programs for many dierent applications.

7.1

Program Examples

7.1.1 16-Bit Data Transfer

Move the contents of one 16-bit variable Sample Problems
Input: Output:

Value

to another 16-bit variable

Result.

Value Result

= =

C123 C123

Program 7.1:

move16.s

16bit data transfer

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

; 16-Bit data transfer TTL AREA ENTRY Main LDRB STR SWI DCW ALIGN DCW END Ch4ex1 - move16 Program, CODE, READONLY

R1, Value R1, Result &11 &C123 0

; Load the value to be moved ; Store it back in a different location ; Value to be moved ; Need to do this because working with 16bit value ; Storage space

Value Result

This program solves the problem in two simple steps. The rst instruction loads data register with the 16-bit value in location register

R1

in location

Result.

Value.

R1

The next instruction saves the 16-bit contents of data

As a reminder of the necessary elements of an assembler program for the ARMulator, notice that this, and all the other example programs have the following elements. Firstly there must be an

ENTRY

AREA directive, at the start of the program, and there may be other AREA directives to dene data storage areas. Finally there must be an END directive, to show where
there must be at least one the code ends. The absence of any of these will cause the assembly to fail with an error. Another limitation to bear in mind is that ARMulator instructions will only deal with bits) or

directive. This tells the assembler where the rst executable instruction is located. Next

WORD

(32 bit) data sizes. It is possible to declare

HALF-WORD

BYTE

(8

(16 bit) variables by the use

57

58

CHAPTER 7.

DATA MOVEMENT
by the use

of the of the

DCW directive, but it is necessary to ensure consistency of storage of HALF-WORD ALIGN directive. You can see the use of this in the rst worked example.

In addition, under the RISC architecture of the ARM, it is not possible to directly manipulate data in storage. Even if no actual manipulation of the data is taking place, as in this rst example, it is necessary to use the This version of the

LDR or LDRB and STR or STRB to move data to a dierent area of memory. STR Value
instruction at the memory location specied by

LDR

instruction moves the 32-bit word contained in memory location

Result.

into a register and then stores it using the

Notice that, by default, every program is allocated a literal pool (a storage area) after the last executable line. In the case of this, and most of the other programs, we have formalised this by the use of the

AREA

Data1, DATA

directive. Instruction on how to nd addresses of variables

will be given in the seminars.

7.1.2 One's Complement

From the bitwise complement of the contents of the 16-bit variable Sample Problems
Input: Output:

Value.

Value Result

= =

C123 FFFF3EDC

Program 7.2:

invert.s

Find the one's compliment (inverse) of a number

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

; Find the one's compliment (inverse) of a number TTL AREA ENTRY Main LDR MVN STR SWI DCD DCD END Ch4Ex2 - invert Program, CODE, READONLY

R1, Value R1, R1 R1, Result &11 &C123 0

; Load the number to be complimented ; NOT the contents of R1 ; Store the result ; Value to be complemented ; Storage for result

Value Result

Value into data register R1 . The next instruction MVN takes the logical complement of data register R1 . Finally, in the third instruction the result of the logical complement is stored in Value.
location Note that any data register may be referenced in any instruction that uses data registers, but note the use of been used. The Thus, in the

This program solves the problem in three steps.

The rst instruction moves the contents of

R15 for the program counter, R14 for the link register and R13 for the stack pointer. LDR instruction we've just illustrated, any of the general purpose registers could have
STR
instructions in this program, like those in Program 7.1, demonstrate one of The data reference to

LDR

and

the ARM's addressing modes. of immediate addressing.

Value

as a source operand is an example

In immediate addressing the oset to the address of the data being

referenced (less 8 byes) is contained in the extension word(s) following the operation word of the instruction. As shown in the assembly listing, the oset to the address corresponding to found in the extension word for the

LDR

and

STR

Value

is

instructions.

7.1.

PROGRAM EXAMPLES

59

7.1.3 32-Bit Addition

Add the contents of the 32-bit variable place the result in the 32-bit variable Sample Problems
Input:

Value1 Result.

to the contents of the 32-bit variable

Value2

and

Value1 Value2 Result

= = =

37E3C123 367402AA 6E57C3CD

Output:

Program 7.3a:

add.s

Add two numbers

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

; Add two (32-Bit) numbers TTL AREA ENTRY Main LDR LDR ADD STR SWI DCD DCD DCD END Ch4Ex3 - add Program, CODE, READONLY

R1, R2, R1, R1, &11

Value1 Value2 R1, R2 Result

; ; ; ;

Load the first number Load the second number ADD them together into R1 (x = x + y) Store the result

Value1 Value2 Result

&37E3C123 &367402AA 0

; First value to be added ; Second value to be added ; Storage for result

The

ADD

instruction in this program is an example of a three-operand instruction. Unlike the

LDR

instruction, this instruction's third operand not only represents the instruction's destination but may also be used to calculate the result. The format:

DESTINATION

SOURCE1

operation

SOURCE2

is common to many of the instructions. As with any microprocessor, there are many instruction sequences you can execute which will solve the same problem. Program 7.3b, for example, is a modication of Program 7.3a and uses oset addressing instead of immediate addressing. Program 7.3b:

add2.s

Add two numbers and store the result

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

; Add two numbers and store the result TTL AREA ENTRY Main LDR LDR ADD LDR ADD LDR STR SWI Ch4Ex4 - add2 Program, CODE, READONLY

R0, R1, R0, R2, R1, R0, R1, &11

=Value1 [R0] R0, #0x4 [R0] R1, R2 =Result [R0]

; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;

Load the address of first value Load what is at that address Adjust the pointer Load what is at the new addr ADD together Load the storage address Store the result All done

60

CHAPTER 7.

DATA MOVEMENT

17 18 19 20 21

Value1 Value2 Result

DCD DCD DCD END

&37E3C123 &367402AA 0

; First value ; Second value ; Space to store result

The

ADR

pseudo-instruction introduces a new addressing mode  oest addressing, which we

have not used previously. Immediate addressing lets you dene a data constant and include that constant in the instruction's associated object code. The assembler format identies immediate addressing with a # preceding the data constant. The size of the data constant varies depending on the instruction. Immediate addressing is extremely useful when small data constants must be referenced. The

ADR

pseudo-instruction could be replaced by the use of the instruction

use of the

LDR

together with the

to indicate that the address of the data should be loaded rather than the data itself.

The second addressing mode  oset addressing  uses immediate addressing to load a pointer to a memory address into one of the general purpose registers. Program 7.3b also demonstrates the use of base register plus oset addressing. In this example we have performed this operation manually on line 10 ( ADD address stored in

R0

by 4 bytes or one

WORD.

R0, R0, #0x4), which increments the

There are much simpler and more ecient ways of

doing this, such as pre-index or post-index addressing which we will see in later examples. Another advantage of this addressing mode is its faster execution time as compared to immediate addressing. This improvement occurs because the address extension word(s) does not have to be fetched from memory prior to the actual data reference, after the initial fetch. A nal advantage is the exibility provided by having

R0

hold an address instead of being xed as

part of the instruction. This exibility allows the same code to be used for more than one address. Thus if you wanted to add the values contained in consecutive variables could simply change the contents of

R0 .

Value3

and

Value4,

you

7.1.4 Shift Left One Bit

Shift the contents of the 16-bit variable Sample Problems
Input: Output:

Value to the left one bit.

Store the result back in

Result.

Value Result

= =

4242 8484

(0100 0010 0100 0010 2 ) (1000 0100 1000 0100 2 )

Program 7.4:

shiftleft.s

Shift Left one bit

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

; Shift Left one bit TTL AREA ENTRY Main LDR MOV STR SWI DCD DCD END Ch4Ex5 - shiftleft Program, CODE, READONLY

R1, Value R1, R1, LSL #0x1 R1, Result &11 &4242 0

; Load the value to be shifted ; SHIFT LEFT one bit ; Store the result ; Value to be shifted ; Space to store result

Value Result

7.1.

PROGRAM EXAMPLES

61

The

MOV

instruction is used to perform a logical shift left. Using the operand format of the

MOV

instruction shown in Program 7.4, a data register can be shifted from 1 to 25 bits on either a byte, word or longword basis. Another form of the in another data register.

LSL

operation allows a shift counter to be specied

7.1.5 Byte Disassembly

Divide the least signicant byte of the 8-bit variable nibble in each byte of the 16-bit variable

Result.

Value

into two 4-bit nibbles and store one The high-order four bits of the

The low-order four bits of the byte will be stored

in the low-order four bits of the least signicant byte of

Result.

byte will be stored in the low-order four bits of the most signicant byte of Sample Problems
Input: Output:

Result.

Value Result

= =

5F 050F

Program 7.5:

nibble.s

Disassemble a byte into its high and low order nibbles

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

; Disassemble a byte into its high and low order nibbles TTL AREA ENTRY Main LDR LDR MOV MOV AND ADD STR SWI Value Mask Result DCB ALIGN DCW ALIGN DCD END Ch4Ex6 - nibble Program, CODE, READONLY

R1, R2, R3, R3, R1, R1,

Value Mask R1, LSR #0x4 R3, LSL #0x8 R1, R2 R1, R3

R1, Result &11 &5F &000F 0

; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;

Load the value to be disassembled Load the bitmask Copy just the high order nibble into R3 Now left shift it one byte AND the original number with the bitmask Add the result of that to What we moved into R3 Store the result

; Value to be shifted ; Keep the memory boundaries ; Bitmask = %0000000000001111 ; Space to store result

B sux, all the LDRinstructions in Program 7.5 LDRB instructions, therefore performing byte operations. The STR instruction must remain, since we are storing a halfword value. If we were only dealing with a one byte result, we could use the STRB byte version of the store instruction.
words also to operate on bytes. Thus, by using the become Remember that the

This is an example of byte manipulation. The ARM allows most instructions which operate on

MOV

instruction performs register-to-register transfers.

This use of the

MOV

instruction is quite frequent. Generally, it is more ecient in terms of program memory usage and execution time to minimise references to memory.

62

CHAPTER 7.

DATA MOVEMENT

7.1.6 Find Larger of Two Numbers

Find the larger of two 32-bit variables Assume the values are unsigned. Sample Problems

Value1 and Value2.

Place the result in the variable

Result.

Input:

Value1 Value2 Result

a = = = 12345678 87654321 87654321

b 12345678 0ABCDEF1 12345678

Output:

Program 7.6:

bigger.s

Find the larger of two numbers

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

; Find the larger of two numbers TTL AREA ENTRY Main LDR LDR CMP BHI MOV STR SWI DCD DCD DCD END Ch4Ex7 - bigger Program, CODE, READONLY

Done

R1, Value1 R2, Value2 R1, R2 Done R1, R2 R1, Result &11 &12345678 &87654321 0

; ; ; ; ;

Load the first value to be compared Load the second value to be compared Compare them If R1 contains the highest otherwise overwrite R1

; Store the result ; Value to be compared ; Value to be compared ; Space to store result

Value1 Value2 Result

The Compare instruction, tracted from the source instruction,

SUB.

CMP, sets the status register ags as if the destination, R1 , were subR2 . The order of the operands is the same as the operands in the subtract BHI
transfers control to the statement labeled

The conditional transfer instruction unsigned contents of values. The

R2

are greater than or equal to the contents of

instruction (on line 12) is executed. At

Done, register R2

R1 .

Done

if the

Otherwise, the next

will always contain the larger of the two

BHI

instruction is one of several conditional branch instructions. To change the program to

operate on signed numbers, simply change the

BHI

to

BGE

(Branch if Greater than or Equal to):

... CMP BGE ...

R1, R2 Done

You can use the following table 7.1 to use when performing signed and unsigned comparisons. Note that the same instructions are used for signal and unsigned addition, subtraction, or comparison; however, the comparison operations are dierent. The conditional branch instructions are an example of program counter relative addressing. In other words, if the branch condition is satised, control will be transfered to an address relative

7.1.

PROGRAM EXAMPLES

63

Compare Condition
greater than or equal greater than equal not equal less than or equal less than

Signed
BGE BGT BEQ BNE BLE BLT

Unsigned
BHS BHI BEQ BNE BLS BLO

Table 7.1: Signed/Unsigned Comparisons

to the current value of the program counter. Dealing with compares and branches is an important part of programming. Don't confuse the sense of the tested is:

CMP instruction.

After a compare, the relation

DESTINATION

condition

SOURCE

For exampe, if the condition is less than, then you test for destination less than source. Become familiar with all of the conditions and their meanings. Unsigned compares are very useful when comparing two addresses.

7.1.7 64-Bit Adition

Add the contents of two 64-bit variables Sample Problems
Input: Output:

Value1

and

Value2.

Store the result in

Result.

Value1 Value2 Result

= = =

12A2E640, 001019BF, 12B30000,

F2100123 40023F51 32124074

Program 7.7:

add64.s

64 bit addition

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

; 64 bit addition TTL AREA ENTRY Main LDR LDR LDR LDR LDR LDR ADDS ADC LDR STR STR SWI Value1 Value2 Result DCD DCD DCD END Ch4Ex8 - add64 Program, CODE, READONLY

R0, R1, R2, R0, R3, R4, R6, R5, R0, R5,

=Value1 [R0] [R0, #4] =Value2 [R0] [R0, #4] R2, R4 R1, R3 =Result [R0]

; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;

Pointer to first value Load first part of value1 Load lower part of value1 Pointer to second value Load upper part of value2 Load lower part of value2 Add lower 4 bytes and set carry flag Add upper 4 bytes including carry Pointer to Result Store upper part of result

R6, [R0, #4] &11 &12A2E640, &F2100123 &001019BF, &40023F51 0

; Store lower part of result ; Value to be added ; Value to be added ; Space to store result

64

CHAPTER 7.

DATA MOVEMENT

Here we introduce several important and powerful instructions from the ARM instruction set. As before, at line 8 we use the of

Value1.

value,

R0 to hold the starting address R1, [R0] fetches the rst 4 bytes (32-bits) of the 64-bit starting at the location pointed to by R0 and places them in the R1 register. Line 10 loads
LDR
instruction which causes register At line 9 the instruction

LDR

the second 4 bytes or the lower half of the 64-bit value from the memroy address pointed to by

R0

plus 4 bytes ([R0,

the upper half while value, reading it

#4]. Between them R1 and R2 now hold the rst R2 has the lower half. Lines 1113 repeat this process into R3 and R4 .
word s,
held in

64-bit value,

R1

has

for the second 64-bit

Next, the two low order

R2

and

R4

are added, and the result stored in

R6 .
This forces

This is all straightforward, but note now the use of the the update of the ags as a result of the

ADD operation.

S sux to the ADD instruction.

In other words, if the result of the addition

results in a carry, the carry ag bit will be set. Now the

R3 ,

ADC (add with carry) instruction is used to add the two high order word s, held in R1

and

but taking into account any carry resulting from the previous addition.

Finally, the result is stored using the same technique as we used the load the values (lines 1618).

7.1.8 Table of Factorials

Calculate the factorial of the 8-bit variable result in the 16-bit variable Sample Problems
Input:

Result.
(0! (1! (2! (3! (4! (5! (6! (7!

Assume

Value from a table of factorials DataTable. Value has a value between 0 and 7.
1 10 ) 1 10 ) 2 10 ) 6 10 ) 24 10 )

Store the

FTABLE

= = = = = = = = = =

0001 0001 0002 0006 0018 0078 02D0 13B0 05 0078

= = = = = = = =

120 10 ) 720 10 ) 5040 10 )

Value
Output:

Result

(5!

120 10 )

location
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Program 7.8:

factorial.s  Lookup the factorial from a table by using the address of the memory

; Lookup the factorial from a table using the address of the memory location TTL AREA ENTRY Main LDR LDR MOV ADD LDR LDR STR SWI Ch4Ex9 - factorial Program, CODE, READONLY

R0, =DataTable R1, Value R1, R1, LSL #0x2 R0, R2, R3, R2, &11 R0, R1 [R0] =Result [R3]

; ; ; ; ; ;

Load the address of the lookup table Offset of value to be looked up Data is declared as 32bit - need to quadruple the offset to point at the correct memory location R0 now contains memory address to store

; The address where we want to store the answer ; Store the answer

7.2.

PROBLEMS

65

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

AREA DCD DCD DCD DCD DCD DCD DCD DCD DCB ALIGN DCW END

DataTable, DATA 1 1 2 6 24 120 720 5040 5 0 ;0! ;1! ;2! ;3! ;4! ;5! ;6! ;7! = = = = = = = = 1 1 2 6 24 120 720 5040 ; The data table containing the factorials

Value Result

The approach to this table lookup problem, as implemented in this program, demonstrates the use of oset addressing. The rst two the lookup table , and register

R1

LDR

instructions, load register

contents of

Value.

R0

with the start address of

LSL #0x2

The actual calculation of the entry in the table is determined by the rst operand of the instruction. The long word contents of address register

contents of data register

R0

R1

R1, R1,

are added to the long word

to form the eective address used to index the table entry. When

R0

is used in this manner, it is referred to as an index register.

7.2

Problems

7.2.1 64-Bit Data Transfer

Move the contents of the 64-bit variable Sample Problems
Input:

VALUE

to the 64-bit variable

RESULT.

VALUE RESULT

3E2A42A1 21F260A0

Output:

3E2A42A1 21F260A0

7.2.2 32-Bit Subtraction

Subtract the contents of the 32-bit variable and store the result back in Sample Problems
Input:

VALUE1.

VALUE1 from the contents of the 32-bit variable VALUE2

VALUE1 VALUE2 VALUE1

12343977 56782182 4443E80B

Output:

7.2.3 Shift Right Three Bits

Shift the contents of the 32-bit variable bit postition.

VALUE

right three bits. Clear the three most signicant

ADR instruction is not valid.

Note that we are using a LDR instruction as the data table is sucently far away from the instruction that an

66

CHAPTER 7.

DATA MOVEMENT

Sample Problems

Input: Output:

VALUE VALUE

Test A 415D7834 082BAF06

Test B 9284C15D 1250982B

7.2.4 Halfword Assembly

Combine the low four bits of each of the four consecutive bytes beginning at halfword. The value at in the 32-bit variable Sample Problems
Input:

LIST goes RESULT.

LIST

into one 16-bit

into the most signicant nibble of the result. Store the result

LIST

0C 02 06 09

Output:

RESULT

0000C269

7.2.5 Find Smallest of Three Numbers

The three 32-bit variables

VALUE1, VALUE2

and

the smallest of these numbers in the 32-bit variable Sample Problems

Input:

VALUE3, each RESULT.

contain an unsigned number. Store

VALUE1 VALUE2 VALUE3 RESULT

91258465 102C2056 70409254 102C2056

Output:

7.2.6 Sum of Squares

Calculate the squares of the contents of word Please the result into the word Sample Problems
Input:

RESULT.

VALUE1

and word

VALUE2

then add them together.

VALUE1 VALUE2 RESULT

00000007 00000032 000009F5

Output:

That is or

72 + 502 = 49 + 2500 = 2549 (decimal) 7 + 322 = 31 + 9C4 = 9F 5 (hexadecimal)

2

7.2.7 Shift Left

COUNT.

bits
VALUE
left. The number of bits to shift is contained in the word

Shift the contents of the word

Assume that the shift count is less than 32. The low-order bits should be cleared.

Sample Problems

Input:

VALUE COUNT VALUE

Test A 182B 0003 C158

Test B 182B 0020 0000

Output:

7.2.

PROBLEMS

67

In the rst case the value is to be shifted left by three bits, while in the second case the same value is to be shifted by thirty two bits.

68

CHAPTER 7.

DATA MOVEMENT

8
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Logic

Program 8.7a:

bigger.s

Find the larger of two numbers

; Find the larger of two numbers TTL AREA ENTRY Main LDR LDR CMP BHI MOV STR SWI DCD DCD DCD END Ch4Ex7 - bigger Program, CODE, READONLY

Done

R1, Value1 R2, Value2 R1, R2 Done R1, R2 R1, Result &11 &12345678 &87654321 0

; ; ; ; ;

Load the first value to be compared Load the second value to be compared Compare them If R1 contains the highest otherwise overwrite R1

; Store the result ; Value to be compared ; Value to be compared ; Space to store result

Value1 Value2 Result

Program 8.7a:

add64.s

64 bit addition

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

; 64 bit addition TTL AREA ENTRY Main LDR LDR LDR LDR LDR LDR ADDS ADC LDR STR STR SWI Value1 Value2 Result DCD DCD DCD END
69

Ch4Ex8 - add64 Program, CODE, READONLY

R0, R1, R2, R0, R3, R4, R6, R5, R0, R5,

=Value1 [R0] [R0, #4] =Value2 [R0] [R0, #4] R2, R4 R1, R3 =Result [R0]

; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;

Pointer to first value Load first part of value1 Load lower part of value1 Pointer to second value Load upper part of value2 Load lower part of value2 Add lower 4 bytes and set carry flag Add upper 4 bytes including carry Pointer to Result Store upper part of result

R6, [R0, #4] &11 &12A2E640, &F2100123 &001019BF, &40023F51 0

; Store lower part of result ; Value to be added ; Value to be added ; Space to store result

70

CHAPTER 8.

LOGIC

Program 8.7a:

factorial.s memory location

TTL AREA ENTRY Main LDR LDR MOV ADD LDR LDR STR SWI AREA DCD DCD DCD DCD DCD DCD DCD DCD DCB ALIGN DCW END

Lookup the factorial from a table by using the address of the

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

; Lookup the factorial from a table using the address of the memory location Ch4Ex9 - factorial Program, CODE, READONLY

R0, =DataTable R1, Value R1, R1, LSL #0x2 R0, R2, R3, R2, &11 DataTable, DATA 1 1 2 6 24 120 720 5040 5 0 ;0! ;1! ;2! ;3! ;4! ;5! ;6! ;7! = = = = = = = = R0, R1 [R0] =Result [R3]

; ; ; ; ; ;

Load the address of the lookup table Offset of value to be looked up Data is declared as 32bit - need to quadruple the offset to point at the correct memory location R0 now contains memory address to store

; The address where we want to store the answer ; Store the answer

Value Result

1 1 2 6 24 120 720 5040

; The data table containing the factorials

Program Loops

The program loop is the basic structure that forces the CPU to repeat a sequence of instructions. Loops have four sections: 1. The initialisation section, which establishes the starting values of counters, pointers, and other variables. 2. The processing section, where the actual data manipulation occurs. This is the section that does the work. 3. The loop control section, which updates counters and pointers for the next iteration. 4. The concluding section, that may be needed to analyse and store the results. The computer performs Sections 1 and 4 only once, while it may perform Sections 2 and 3 many times. Therefore, the execution time of the loop depends mainly on the execution time of Sections 2 and 3. Those sections should execute as quickly as possible, while the execution times of Sections 1 and 4 have less eect on overall program speed. There are typically two methods of programming a loop, these are the repeat . . . until loop (Algorithm 9.1a) and the while loop (Algorithm 9.1b). The repeat-until loop results in the computer always executing the processing section of the loop at least once. On the other hand, the computer may not execute the processing section of the while loop at all. The repeat-until loop is more natural, but the while loop is often more ecient and eliminates the problem of going through the processing sequence once even where there is no data for it to handle. The computer can use the loop structure to process large sets of data (usually called arrays). The simplest way to use one sequence of instructions to handle an array of data is to have the program increment a register (usually an index register or stack pointer) after each iteration. Then the register will contain the address of the next element in the array when the computer repeats the sequence of instructions. The computer can then handle arrays of any length with a single program. Register indirect addressing is the key to the processing arrays since it allows you to vary the actual address of the data (the  eective

Repeat Until

Initialisation Section

Algorithm 9.1a

Processing Section Loop Control Section task completed

Concluding Section

Initialisation Section

Algorithm 9.1b
task incomplete

While

Repeat

Processing Section

address )

by changing the contents of a register. The

autoincrementing mode is particularly convenient for processing arrays since it automatically updates the register for the next iteration. No additional instruction is necessary. You can even have an automatic increment by 2 or 4 if the array contains 16-bit or 32-bit data or addresses. Although our examples show the processing of arrays with autoincrementing (adding 1, 2, or 4 after each iteration), the procedure is equally valid with autodecrementing (subtracting 1, 2, or 4 before each iteration). Many programmers nd moving backward through an array somewhat awkward

71

72

CHAPTER 9.

PROGRAM LOOPS

and dicult to follow, but it is more ecient in many situations. The computer obviously does not know backward from forward. The programmer, however, must remember that the processor increments an address register after using it but decrements an address register before using it. This dierence aects initialisation as follows:

1. When moving forward through an array (autoincrementing), start the register pointing to the lowest address occupied by the array. 2. When moving backward through an array (autodecrementing), start the register pointing one step (1, 2, or 4) beyond the highest address occupied by the array.

9.1

Program Examples

9.1.1 Sum of numbers

16-bit
Program 9.1a:

sum16.s

Add a series of 16 bit numbers by using a table address

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

Add a series of 16 bit numbers by using a table address look-up TTL AREA ENTRY Ch5Ex1 Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

Loop

LDR EOR LDR LDR ADD ADD SUBS BNE STR SWI AREA

R0, =Data1 R1, R1, R1 R2, Length R3, [R0] R1, R1, R3 R0, R0, #+4 R2, R2, #0x1 Loop R1, Result &11 Data1, DATA &2040 &1C22 &0242 0 Data2, DATA (TablEnd - Table) / 4 0

;load the address of the lookup table ;clear R1 to store sum ;init element count ;get the data ;add it to r1 ;increment pointer ;decrement count with zero set ;if zero flag is not set, loop ;otherwise done - store result

Table

DCW ALIGN DCW ALIGN DCW ALIGN TablEnd DCD Length Result AREA DCW ALIGN DCW END

;table of values to be added ;32 bit aligned

;because we're having to align ;gives the loop count ;storage for result

Program 9.1b:

sum16b.s

Add a series of 16 bit numbers by using a table address look-up

Add a series of 16 bit numbers by using a table address look-up

9.1.

PROGRAM EXAMPLES

73

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

This example has nothing in the lookup table, and the program handles this TTL AREA ENTRY Ch5Ex2 Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

Loop

LDR EOR LDR CMP BEQ LDR ADD ADD SUBS BNE STR SWI AREA

R0, =Data1 R1, R1, R1 R2, Length R2, #0 Done R3, [R0] R1, R1, R3 R0, R0, #+4 R2, R2, #0x1 Loop R1, Result &11 Data1, DATA 0 Data2, DATA (TablEnd - Table) / 4 0

;load the address of the lookup table ;clear R1 to store sum ;init element count

Done

;get the data that R0 points to ;add it to r1 ;increment pointer ;decrement count with zero set ;if zero flag is not set, loop ;otherwise done - store result

Table TablEnd DCD Length Result AREA DCW ALIGN DCW END

;Table is empty

;because we're having to align ;gives the loop count ;storage for result

32-bit 64-bit

9.1.2 Number of negative elements

Program 9.2a:

countneg.s

Scan a series of 32 bit numbers to nd how many are negative

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Scan a series of 32 bit numbers to find how many are negative TTL AREA ENTRY Ch5Ex3 Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

Loop

LDR EOR LDR CMP BEQ LDR CMP BPL ADD ADD SUBS

R0, =Data1 R1, R1, R1 R2, Length R2, #0 Done R3, [R0] R3, #0 Looptest R1, R1, #1 R0, R0, #+4 R2, R2, #0x1

;load the address of the lookup table ;clear R1 to store count ;init element count ;if table is empty ;get the data ;skip next line if +ve or zero ;increment -ve number count ;increment pointer ;decrement count with zero set

Looptest

74

CHAPTER 9.

PROGRAM LOOPS

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

Done

BNE STR SWI AREA

Loop R1, Result &11 Data1, DATA &F1522040 &7F611C22 &80000242 0 Data2, DATA (TablEnd - Table) / 4 0

;if zero flag is not set, loop ;otherwise done - store result

Table

DCD DCD DCD TablEnd DCD Length Result AREA DCW ALIGN DCW END

;table of values to be added

;because we're having to align ;gives the loop count ;storage for result

Program 9.2b:

countneg16.s

Scan a series of 16 bit numbers to nd how many are negative

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

Scan a series of 16 bit numbers to find how many are negative TTL AREA ENTRY Ch5Ex4 Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

Loop

LDR EOR LDR CMP BEQ LDR AND CMP BEQ ADD ADD SUBS BNE STR SWI AREA

R0, =Data1 R1, R1, R1 R2, Length R2, #0 Done R3, [R0] R3, R3, #0x8000 R3, #0x8000 Looptest R1, R1, #1 R0, R0, #+4 R2, R2, #0x1 Loop R1, Result &11 Data1, DATA &F152 &7F61 &8000 0 Data2, DATA (TablEnd - Table) / 4 0

;load the address of the lookup table ;clear R1 to store count ;init element count ;if table is empty ;get the data ;bit wise AND to see if the 16th ;bit is 1 ;skip next line if zero ;increment -ve number count ;increment pointer ;decrement count with zero set ;if zero flag is not set, loop ;otherwise done - store result

Looptest

Done

Table

DCW ALIGN DCW ALIGN DCW ALIGN TablEnd DCD Length Result AREA DCW ALIGN DCW END

;table of values to be tested

;because we're having to align ;gives the loop count ;storage for result

9.1.

PROGRAM EXAMPLES

75

9.1.3 Find Maximum Value

Program 9.3:

largest16.s

Scan a series of 16 bit numbers to nd the largest

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

Scan a series of 16 bit numbers to find the largest TTL AREA ENTRY Ch5Ex5 Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

Loop

LDR EOR LDR CMP BEQ LDR CMP BCC MOV ADD SUBS BNE STR SWI AREA

R0, =Data1 R1, R1, R1 R2, Length R2, #0 Done R3, [R0] R3, R1 Looptest R1, R3 R0, R0, #+4 R2, R2, #0x1 Loop R1, Result &11 Data1, DATA &A152 &7F61 &F123 &8000 0 Data2, DATA (TablEnd - Table) / 4 0

;load the address of the lookup table ;clear R1 to store largest ;init element count ;if table is empty ;get the data ;bit is 1 ;skip next line if zero ;increment -ve number count ;increment pointer ;decrement count with zero set ;if zero flag is not set, loop ;otherwise done - store result

Looptest

Done

Table

DCW ALIGN DCW ALIGN DCW ALIGN DCW ALIGN TablEnd DCD AREA Length Result DCW ALIGN DCW END

;table of values to be tested

;because we're having to align ;gives the loop count ;storage for result

9.1.4 Normalize A Binary Number

Program 9.4:

normalize.s

Normalize a binary number

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

normalize a binary number TTL AREA ENTRY Ch5Ex6 Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

LDR EOR

R0, =Data1 R1, R1, R1

;load the address of the lookup table ;clear R1 to store shifts

76

CHAPTER 9.

PROGRAM LOOPS

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

Loop

LDR CMP BEQ ADD MOVS BPL STR STR SWI AREA

R3, [R0] R3, R1 Done R1, R1, #1 R3, R3, LSL#0x1 Loop R1, Shifted R3, Normal &11 Data1, DATA &30001000 &00000001 &00000000 &C1234567 Result, DATA Table 0 0

;get the data ;bit is 1 ;if table is empty ;increment pointer ;decrement count with zero set ;if negative flag is not set, loop ;otherwise done - store result

Done

Table * * *

DCD DCD DCD DCD AREA

;table of values to be tested

Number DCD Shifted DCB ALIGN Normal DCD END

;storage for shift ;storage for result

9.2

Problems

9.2.1 Checksum of data

Calculate the checksum of a series of 8-bit numbers. The length of the series is dened by the variable variable

LENGTH. The label START indicates CHECKSUM. The checksum is formed

the start of the table.

Store the checksum in the

by adding all the numbers in the list, ignoring the

carry over (or overow). Note: Checksums are often used to ensure that data has been correctly read. A checksum calculated when reading the data is compared to a checksum that is stored with the data. If the two checksums do not agree, the system will usually indicate an error, or automatically read the data again. Sample Problem:
Input:

LENGTH START

00000003 28 55 26

( (

Number of items Start of data table

)

Output:

CHECKSUM

28 + 55 + 26
= 00101000 (28) + 01010101 (55) = 01111101 (7D) + 00100110 (26) = 10100011 (A3)

Data Checksum

9.2.

PROBLEMS

77

9.2.2 Number of Zero, Positive, and Negative numbers

Determine the number of zero, positive (most signicant bit zero, but entire number not zero), and negative (most signicant bit set) elements in a series of signed 32-bit numbers. The length of the series is dened by the variable variable label. Place the number of negative elements in variable

NUMZERO

and the number

LENGTH and the starting series of numbers start with the START NUMNEG, the number of zero elements in of positive elements in variable NUMPOS.

Sample Problem:
Input:

LENGTH START

6 76028326 8D489867 21202549 00000000 E605546C 00000004

( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( (

Output:

NUMNEG NUMZERO NUMPOS

2 1 3

Number of items Start of data table  Positive Negative Positive Zero Negative Positive 2 negative numbers: 8D489867 and E605546C 1 zero value 3 positive numbers: 76028326, 21202549 and 00000004
) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) )

9.2.3 Find Minimum

Find the smallest element in a series of unsigned bytes. The length of the series is dened by the variable

NUMMIN

LENGTH

with the series starting at the

START

label. Store the minimum byte value in the

variable.

Sample Problem:
Input:

LENGTH START

5 65 79 15 E3 72

( (

Number of items Start of data table

)

Output:

NUMMIN

15

Smallest of the ve

9.2.4 Count 1 Bits

Determine the number of bits which are set in the 32-bit variable

NUMBITS

NUM,

storing the result in the

variable.

Sample Problem:
Input: Output:

NUM NUMBITS

2866B794 = 0011 1000 0110 0110 1011 0111 1001 0100 0F = 15

9.2.5 Find element with most 1 bits

Determine which element in a series of 32-bit numbers has the largest number of bits set. The length of the series is dened by the

LENGTH

Store the value with the most bits set in the Sample Problem:

NUM

variable and the series starts with the variable.

START

label.

78

CHAPTER 9.

PROGRAM LOOPS

Input:

LENGTH START

5 205A15E3 256C8700 295468F2 29856779 9147592A

Number of items

(0010 0000 0101 1010 0001 0101 1101 0011  13) (0010 0101 0110 1100 1000 0111 0000 0000  11) (0010 1001 0101 0100 0110 1000 1111 0010  14) (0010 1001 1000 0101 0110 0111 0111 1001  16) (1001 0001 0100 0111 0101 1001 0010 1010  14) (

Output:

NUM

29856779

Number with most 1-bits

10

Strings

Microprocessors often handle data which represents printed characters rather than numeric quantities. Not only do keyboards, printers, communications devices, displays, and computer terminals expect or provide character-coded data, but many instruments, test systems, and controllers also require data in this form. ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is the most commonly used code, but others exist. We use the standard seven-bit ASCII character codes, as shown in Table 10.1; the character code occupies the low-order seven bits of the byte, and the most signicant bit of the byte holds a 0 or a parity bit.

10.1

Handling data in ASCII

Here are some principles to remember in handling ASCII-coded data:

The codes for the numbers and letters form ordered sequences. Since the ASCII codes for

the characters  0 through  9 are 3016 through 3916 you can convert a decimal digit to the = ASCII  0. Since the codes for letters (41 16 through 5A16 and 6116 through 7A16 ) are in order, you can alphabetises strings by sorting them according to their numerical values. equivalent ASCII characters (and ASCII to decimal) by simple adding the ASCII oset: 30 16

The computer does not distinguish between printing and non-printing characters. Only the I/0 devices make that distinction. An ASCII I/0 device handles data only in ASCII. For example, if you want an ASCII printer

to print the digit  7, you must send it 37 16 as the data; 0716 will ring the bell. Similarly, tab key.

if a user presses the  9 key on an ASCII keyboard, the input data will be 39 16 ; 0916 is the

Many ASCII devices do not use the entire character set. For example, devices may ignore many control characters and may not print lower-case letters. Despite the denition of the control characters many devices interpret them dierently. For example they typically uses control characters in a special way to provide features such as cursor control on a display, and to allow software control of characteristics such as rate of data transmission, print width, and line length.

Some widely used ASCII control characters are: 0A16 0D16 0816 7F16 LF CR BS DEL line feed carriage return backspace rub out or delete character

79

80

CHAPTER 10.

STRINGS

LSB 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F

0 NUL SOH STX ETX EOT ENQ ACK BEL BS HT LF VT FF CR SO SI

1 DLE DC1 DC2 DC3 DC4 NAK SYN ETB CAN EM SUB ESC FS GS RS US

2 SP
! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , . /

MSB 3 4
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 : ; < = > ?

@ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N 0

P Q R S T U V W X Y Z [ \ ] ^ _

` a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o

DEL

p q r s t u v w x y z { | } ~

NUL SOH STX ETX EOT ENQ ACK BEL BS HT LF VT FF CR SO SI SP

Control Characters Null DLE Data link escape Start of heading DC1 Device control 1 Start of text DC2 Device control 2 End of text DC3 Device control 3 End of tx DC4 Device control 4 Enquiry NAK Negative ack Acknowledge SYN Synchronous idle Bell, or alarm ETB End of tx block Backspace CAN Cancel Horizontal tab EM End of medium Line feed SUB Substitute Vertical tab ESC Escape Form feed FS File separator Carriage return GS Group separator Shift out RS Record separator Shift in US Unit separator Space DEL Delete

Table 10.1: Hexadecimal ASCII Character Codes

Each ASCII character occupies eight bits. This allows a large character set but is wasteful when only a few characters are actually being used. If, for example, the data consists entirely of decimal numbers, the ASCII format (allowing one digit per byte) requires twice as much storage, communications capacity, and processing time as the BCD format (allowing two digits per byte).

The assembler includes a feature to make character-coded data easy to handle, single quotation marks around a character indicate the character's ASCII value. For example,

MOV
is the same as

R3, #'A'

MOV

R3, #0x41

The rst form is preferable for several reasons. It increases the readability of the instruction, it also avoids errors that may result from looking up a value in a table. code has been designed for. The program does not depend on ASCII as the character set, since the assembler handles the conversion using whatever

10.2

A string of characters
In assembly programming it is normal to have

Individual characters on there own are not really all that helpful. As humans we need a string of characters in order to form meaningful text. to process one character at a time. program 10.1a is: However, the assembler does at least allow us to store a

string of byes (characters) in a friendly manner with the

DCB

directive. For example, line 26 of

DCB

"Hello, World", CR

which will produce the following binary data:

10.2.

A STRING OF CHARACTERS
Binary: Text:

81

48 H

65 e

6C l

6C l

6F o

2C ,

20
SP

57 W

6F o

72 r

6C l

64 d

0D
CR

Use table 10.1 to check that this is correct. In order to make the program just that little bit more readable, line 5 denes the label

CR

to have the value for a Carriage Return (0D 16 ).

There are three main methods for handling strings: Fixed Length, Terminated, and Counted. It is normal for a high level language to support just one method. use of Zero-Terminated strings, while

Pascal

and

Ada

C/C++

and

Java

all support the

use counted strings. Although it is possible

to provide your own support for the alternative string type it is seldom done. A good programmer will use a mix of methods depending of the nature of the strings concerned.

10.2.1 Fixed Length Strings

A xed length string is where the string is of a predened and xed size. For example, in a system where it is known that all strings are going to be ten characters in length, we can simply reserve 10 bytes for the string. This has an immediate advantages in that the management of the strings is simple when compared to the alternative methods. For example we only need one label for an array of strings, and we can calculate the starting position of the

nth

string by a simple multiplication.

This advantage is however also a major disadvantage. For example a persons name can be anything from two characters to any number of characters. Although it would be possible to reserve sucient space for the longest of names this amount of memory would be required for all names, including the two letter ones. This is a signicant waist of memory. It would be possible to reserve just ten characters for each name. When a two letter name appears it would have to be padded out with spaces in order to make the name ten characters in length. When a name longer than ten characters appears it would have to be truncated down to just ten characters thus chopping o part of the name. This requires extra processing and is not entirely friendly to users who happen to have a long name. When there is little memory and all the strings are known in advance it may be a good idea to use xed length strings. For example, command driven systems tend to use a xed length strings for the list of commands.

10.2.2 Terminated Strings

A terminated string is one that can be of any length and uses a special character to mark the end of the string, this character is known at the return as it's sentinel. Over the years several dierent sentinels have been used, these include $ (26 16 ), EOT (End of Text  0416 ), CR (Carriage Return  0D 16 ), LF (Line Feed  0A 16 ) and NUL (No character  0016 ). Today the most commonly used sentinel is the NUL character, primarily because it is used by

sentinel.

For example program 10.1a uses the carriage

C/C++.

The NUL character also has a good feeling about it, as it is represented by the value

0, has no other meaning and it is easier to detected than any other character. This is frequently referred to as a Null- or Zero-Terminated string or simply as an ASCIIZ string. The terminated string has the advantage that it can be of any length. Processing the string is fairly simply, you enter into a loop processing each character at a time until you reach the sentinel. The disadvantage is that the sentinel character can not appear in the string. This is another reason why the NUL character is such a good choice for the sentinel.

82

CHAPTER 10.

STRINGS

10.2.3 Counted Strings

A counted string is one in which the rst one or two byte holds the length of the string in characters. Thus a counted string can be of any number of characters up to the largest unsigned number that can be stored in the rst byte/word. A counted string may appear rather clumsy at rst. Having the length of the string as a binary value has a distinct advantage over the terminated string. It allow the use of the counting instructions that have been included in many instruction sets. This means we can ignore the testing for a sentinel character and simply decrement our counter, this is a far faster method of working. To scan through an array of strings we simply point to the rst string, and add the length count to our pointer to obtain the start of the next string. For a terminated string we would have to scan for the sentinel for each string. There are two disadvantages with the counted string. The string does have a maximum length, 255 characters or 64K depending on the size of the count value (8- or 16-bit). normally felt that 64K should be sucient for most strings. speed advantage. Although it is The second disadvantage is their

perceived complexity. Many people feel that the complexity of the counted string outweighs the

10.3

International Characters

As computing expands outside of the English speaking world we have to provide support for languages other than standard American. Many European languages use letters that are not available in standard ASCII, for example: , , , , , , , , , , and . This is particularly important when dealing with names: ngstrm, Karlstrae or ukasiewicz. The ASCII character set is not even capable of handling English correctly. When we borrow a word from another language we also use it's

diacritic marks

(or

accents ).

For example I would

rather see pt on a menu rather than pate. ASCII does not provide support for such accents. To overcome this limitation the international community has produced a new character encoding,

known as Unicode. In Unicode the character code is two bytes long, the rst byte indicates which character set the character comes from, while the second byte indicates the character position within the character set. this new wide character. While Unicode is sucient to represent the characters from most modern languages, it is not sucient to represent all the written languages of the world, ancient and modern. Hence an extended version, known as Unicode-32 is being developed where the character set is a 23-bit value (three bytes). Unicode is a subset of Unicode-32, while ASCII is a subset of Unicode. Although we do not consider Unicode you should be aware of the problem of international character sets and the solution Unicode provides. The traditional ASCII character set is incorporated into Unicode as character set zero. In the revised

standard a new data type of

wchar

was dened to cater for

10.4

Program Examples

10.4.1 Length of a String of Characters

Program 10.1a:

strlencr.s

Find the length of a Carage Return terminated string

10.4.

PROGRAM EXAMPLES

83

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

; Find the length of a CR terminated string TTL CR EQU AREA ENTRY Main Loop LDR EOR LDRB CMP BEQ ADD BAL STR SWI AREA Table DCB ALIGN Ch6Ex1 - strlencr 0x0D Program, CODE, READONLY

R0, =Data1 R1, R1, R1 R2, [R0], #1 R2, #CR Done R1, R1, #1 Loop R1, CharCount &11 Data1, DATA "Hello, World", CR Result, DATA 0

; Load the address of the lookup table ; Clear R1 to store count ; ; ; ; ; Load the first byte into R2 Is it the terminator ? Yes => Stop loop No => Increment count Read next char

Done

; Store result

AREA CharCount DCB END

; Storage for count

Program 10.1b:

strlen.s

Find the length of a null terminated string

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

; Find the length of a null terminated string TTL AREA ENTRY Main Loop LDR MOV ADD LDRB CMP BNE STR SWI AREA Table DCB ALIGN Ch6Ex1 - strlen Program, CODE, READONLY

R0, =Data1 R1, #-1 R1, R1, #1 R2, [R0], #1 R2, #0 Loop R1, CharCount &11 Data1, DATA "Hello, World", 0 Result, DATA 0

; Load the address of the lookup table ; Start count at -1 ; ; ; ; Increment count Load the first byte into R2 Is it the terminator ? No => Next char

; Store result

AREA CharCount DCB END

; Storage for count

84

CHAPTER 10.

STRINGS

10.4.2 Find First Non-Blank Character

Program 10.2:

skipblanks.s
Ch6Ex3

Find rst non-blank

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

find the length of a string TTL

Blank

EQU AREA ENTRY ADR MOV LDRB CMP BEQ SUB STR SWI AREA

" " Program, CODE, READONLY

Main Loop

R0, Data1 R1, #Blank R2, [R0], #1 R2, R1 Loop R0, R0, #1 R0, Pointer &11 Data1, DATA " 7 "

;load the address of the lookup table ;store the blank char in R1 ;load the first byte into R2 ;is it a blank ;if so loop ;otherwise done - adjust pointer ;and store it

Table

DCB ALIGN

AREA Pointer DCD ALIGN END

Result, DATA 0

;storage for count

10.4.3 Replace Leading Zeros with Blanks

Program 10.3:

padzeros.s
Ch6Ex4

Supress leading zeros in a string

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

supress leading zeros in a string TTL

Blank Zero

EQU EQU AREA ENTRY LDR MOV MOV LDRB CMP BNE

' ' '0' Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

Loop

R0, =Data1 R1, #Zero R3, #Blank R2, [R0], #1 R2, R1 Done

;load the address of the lookup table ;store the zero char in R1 ;and the blank char in R3 ;load the first byte into R2 ;is it a zero ;if not, done

10.4.

PROGRAM EXAMPLES

85

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

SUB STRB ADD BAL Done SWI AREA Table DCB ALIGN

R0, R0, #1 R3, [R0] R0, R0, #1 Loop &11 Data1, DATA "000007000" Result, DATA 0

;otherwise adjust the pointer ;and store it blank char there ;otherwise adjust the pointer ;and loop ;all done

AREA Pointer DCD ALIGN END

;storage for count

10.4.4 Add Even Parity to ASCII Chatacters

Program 10.4:

string in Result
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

setparity.s

Set the parity bit on a series of characters store the amended

; Set the parity bit on a series of characters store the amended string in Result TTL AREA ENTRY Main LDR LDR LDRB CMP BEQ LDRB MOV MOV MOV MOV MOVS BPL ADD SUBS BNE TST BEQ ORR STRB BAL STRB SUBS BNE SWI Ch6Ex5 Program, CODE, READONLY

MainLoop

R0, =Data1 R5, =Pointer R1, [R0], #1 R1, #0 Done R2, R6, R2, R3, R4, [R0], #1 R2 R2, LSL #24 #0 #7

;load the address of the lookup table ;store the string length in R1 ;nothing to do if zero length ;load the first byte into R2 ;keep a copy of the original char ;shift so that we are dealing with msb ;zero the bit counter ;init the shift counter ;left shift ;if msb is not a one bit, branch ;otherwise add to bit count ;update shift count ;loop if still bits to check ;is the parity even ;if so branch ;otherwise set the parity bit ;and store the amended char ;store the unamended char if even pty ;decrement the character count

ParLoop

DontAdd

R2, R2, LSL #1 DontAdd R3, R3, #1 R4, R4, #1 ParLoop R3, #1 Even R6, R6, #0x80 R6, [R5], #1 Check R6, [R5], #1 R1, R1, #1 MainLoop &11

Even Check Done

86

CHAPTER 10.

STRINGS

39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

AREA Table DCB DCB DCB DCB DCB DCB DCB

Data1, DATA 6 0x31 0x32 0x33 0x34 0x35 0x36 Result, DATA 0 ;storage for parity characters ;data table starts with byte length of string ;the string

AREA ALIGN Pointer DCD END

10.4.5 Pattern Match

Program 10.5a:

cstrcmp.s
Ch6Ex6

Compare two counted strings for equality

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

compare two counted strings for equality TTL AREA ENTRY

Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

LDR LDR LDR LDR LDR CMP BNE CMP BEQ

R0, =Data1 R1, =Data2 R2, Match R3, [R0], #4 R4, [R1], #4 R3, R4 Done R3, #0 Same

;load the address of the lookup table ;assume strings not equal - set to -1 ;store the first string length in R3 ;store the second string length in R4 ;if they are different lengths, ;they can't be equal ;test for zero length if both are ;zero length, nothing else to do

* Loop

if we got this far, we now need to check the string char by char LDRB LDRB CMP BNE SUBS BEQ B R5, [R0], #1 R6, [R1], #1 R5, R6 Done R3, R3, #1 Same Loop R2, #0 R2, Match &11 Data1, DATA 3 "CAT" Data2, DATA 3 "CAT" Result, DATA ;character of first string ;character of second string ;are they the same ;if not the strings are different ;use the string length as a counter ;if we got to the end of the count ;the strings are the same ;not done, loop ;clear the -1 from match (0 = match) ;store the result

Same Done

MOV STR SWI AREA DCD DCB AREA DCD DCB AREA

Table1

;data table starts with byte length of string ;the string ;data table starts with byte length of string ;the string

Table2

10.4.

PROGRAM EXAMPLES

87

44 45 46 47

Match

ALIGN DCD END

&FFFF

;storage for parity characters

Program 10.5b:

strcmp.s  Compare null terminated strings for equality assume that we have no knowledge of the data structure so we must assess the individual strings
; Compare two null terminated strings for equality TTL AREA ENTRY Main LDR LDR LDR MOV MOV LDRB CMP BEQ ADD BAL LDRB CMP BEQ ADD BAL CMP BNE CMP BEQ LDR LDR * Loop Ch6Ex7 Program, CODE, READONLY

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58

Count1

R0, R1, R2, R3, R4,

=Data1 =Data2 Match #0 #0

;load the address of the lookup table ;assume strings not equal, set to -1 ;init register ;load the first byte into R5 ;is it the terminator ;if not, Loop ;increment count ;load the first byte into R5 ;is it the terminator ;if not, Loop ;increment count

Count2

R5, [R0], #1 R5, #0 Count2 R3, R3, #1 Count1 R5, [R1], #1 R5, #0 Next R4, R4, #1 Count2 R3, R4 Done R3, #0 Same R0, =Data1 R1, =Data2

Next

;if they are different lengths, ;they can't be equal ;test for zero length if both are ;zero length, nothing else to do ;need to reset the lookup table

if we got this far, we now need to check the string char by char LDRB LDRB CMP BNE SUBS BEQ BAL R5, [R0], #1 R6, [R1], #1 R5, R6 Done R3, R3, #1 Same Loop R2, #0 R2, Match &11 Data1, DATA "Hello, World", 0 Data2, DATA "Hello, worl", 0 ;character of first string ;character of second string ;are they the same ;if not the strings are different ;use the string length as a counter ;if we got to the end of the count ;the strings are the same ;not done, loop ;clear the -1 from match (0 = match) ;store the result

Same Done

MOV STR SWI AREA DCB ALIGN AREA DCB

Table1

;the string

Table2

;the string

88

CHAPTER 10.

STRINGS

59 60 61 62 63

Match

AREA ALIGN DCD END

Result, DATA &FFFF ;flag for match

10.5

Problems

10.5.1 Length of a Teletypewriter Message

Determine the length of an ASCII message. All characters are 7-bit ASCII with MSB = 0. The string of characters in which the message is embedded has a starting address which is contained in the

START

variable. The message itself starts with an ASCII

(0216 ) and ends with the

ETX

STX

(Start of Text) character

(End of Text) character (03 16 ). Save the length of the message, the

number of characters between the

LENGTH

STX

and the

ETX

markers (but not including the markers) in

variable.

Sample Problem:
Input:

START

String
LENGTH

String
02 47 4F 03

(STX  ( O) ( G)

Location of string Start Text End Text

) )

(ETX  (GO)

Output:

02

10.5.2 Find Last Non-Blank Character

Search a string of ASCII characters for the last non-blank character. Starting address of the string is contained in the

START

variable and the string ends with a carriage return character ( 0D16 ).

Place the address of the last non-blank character in the Sample Problems:

POINTER

variable.

Input:

START

String

String

Test A

String

Test B

37 ( 7) 0D (CR)

41 ( A) 20 (Space) 48 ( H) 41 ( A) 54 ( T) 20 (Space) 20 (Space) 0D (CR)

Output:

POINTER

First Char

Fourth Char

10.5.3 Truncate Decimal String to Integer Form

Edit a string of ASCII decimal characters by replacing all digits to the right of the decimal point with ASCII blanks (20 16 ). The starting address of the string is contained in the point (2E16 ). The length of the string is stored in the

START

variable

and the string is assumed to consist entirely of ASCII-coded decimal digits and a possible decimal

LENGTH variable.

If no decimal point appears

in the string, assume that the decimal point is at the far right.

10.5.

PROBLEMS

89

Sample Problems:

Input:

START LENGTH

String
4

Test A

String
3

Test B

String
Output:

37 ( 7) 38 ( 8) 31 ( 1) 37 ( 7)

2E ( .)

37 ( 7) 31 ( 1)

36 ( 6)

2E ( .) 20 (Space) 20 (Space)

36 ( 6) 31 ( 1) 37 ( 7)

Note that in the second case (Test B) the output is unchaged, as the number is assumed to be 671..

10.5.4 Check Even Parity and ASCII Characters

Cheek for even parity in a string of ASCII characters. A string's starting address is contained in the

START

variable. The rst word of the string is its length which is followed by the string itself.

If the parity of all the characters in the string are correct, clear the place all ones (FFFFFFFF 16 ) into the variable. Sample Problems:

PARITY

variable; otherwise

Input:

START

String
PARITY

String
3

Test A

String
03

Test B

B1 (1011 0001) B2 (1011 0010) 33 (0011 0011)

B1 (1011 0001) B6 (1011 0110) 33 (0011 0011) FFFFFFFF (False)

Output:

00000000 (True)

10.5.5 String Comparison

Compare two strings of ASCII characters to see which is larger (that is, which follows the other in alphabetical ordering). Both strings have the same length as dened by the strings' starting addresses are dened by the by

START1

START1

and

is greater than or equal to the other string,

LENGTH variable. The START2 variables. If the string dened clear the GREATER variable; otherwise set

the variable to all ones (FFFFFFFF 16 ). Sample Problems:

Input:

LENGTH START1 START2

Test A

Test B

Test C

String1 String2
Output:

String1 String2
43 ( C) 41 ( A) 54 ( T) 42 ( B) 41 ( A) 54 ( T)

String1 String2
43 ( C) 41 ( A) 54 ( T) 52 ( C) 41 ( A) 54 ( T) 00000000 (CAT

String1 String2
43 ( C) 41 ( A) 54 ( T) 52 ( C) 55 ( U) 54 ( T) FFFFFFFF (CAT

GREATER

00000000 (CAT

>

BAT)

CAT)

<

CUT)

90

CHAPTER 10.

STRINGS

11

Code Conversion

Code conversion is a continual problem in microcomputer applications. Peripherals provide data in ASCII, BCD or various special codes. The microcomputer must convert the data into some standard form for processing. Output devices may require data in ASCII, BCD, seven-segment or other codes. Therefore, the microcomputer must convert the results to the proper form after it completes the processing. There are several ways to approach code conversion: 1. Some conversions can easily be handled by algorithms involving arithmetic or logical functions. The program may, however, have to handle special cases separately. 2. More complex conversions can be handled with lookup tables. requires little programming and is easy to apply. amount of memory if the range of input values is large. 3. Hardware is readily available for some conversion tasks. Typical examples are decoders The lookup table method

However the table may occupy a large

for BCD to seven-segment conversion and Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitters (UARTs) for conversion between parallel and serial formats. In most applications, the program should do as much as possible of the code conversion work. Most code conversions are easy to program and require little execution time.

11.1

Program Examples

11.1.1 Hexadecimal to ASCII

Program 11.1a:

nibtohex.s
Ch7Ex1

Convert a single hex digit to its ASCII equivalent

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

convert a single hex digit to its ASCII equivalent TTL AREA ENTRY

Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

LDR LDR CMP BLT ADD ADD STR SWI

R0, Digit R1, =Result R0, #0xA Add_0 R0, R0, #"A"-"0"-0xA R0, R0, #"0" R0, [R1] &11

;load the digit ;load the address for the result ;is the number < 10 decimal ;then branch ;add offset for 'A' to 'F' ;convert to ASCII ;store the result

Add_0

91

92

CHAPTER 11.

CODE CONVERSION

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Digit

AREA DCD AREA DCD END

Data1, DATA &0C Data2, DATA 0 ;the hex digit ;storage for result

Result

Program 11.1b:

wordtohex.s output to the terminal

* *

Convert a 32 bit hexadecimal number to an ASCII string and

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

now something a little more adventurous - convert a 32 bit hexadecimal number to an ASCII string and output to the terminal TTL AREA ENTRY EQU LDR MOV MOV MOV MOV SUB AND CMP BLT ADD Ch7Ex2 Program, CODE, READONLY 0x0000000F R1, Digit R4, #8 R5, #28 R3, R1 R3, R3, LSR R5 R5, R5, #4 R3, R3, #Mask R3, #0xA Add_0 R3, R3, #"A"-"0"-0xA R3, R3, #"0" R0, R3 &0 R4, R4, #1 MainLoop R0, #&0D &0 &11 Data1, DATA &DEADBEEF ;load the digit ;init counter ;control right shift ;copy original word ;right shift the correct number of bits ;reduce the bit shift ;mask out all but the ls nibble ;is the number < 10 decimal ;then branch ;add offset for 'A' to 'F' ;convert to ASCII ;prepare to output ;output to console ;decrement counter ;add a CR character ;output it ;all done ;the hex word

Mask start

MainLoop

Add_0

ADD MOV SWI SUBS BNE MOV SWI SWI

Digit

AREA DCD END

11.1.2 Decimal to Seven-Segment

Program 11.2:

nibtoseg.s
Ch7Ex3

Convert a decimal number to seven segment binary

1 2 3 4 5 6

convert a decimal number to seven segment binary TTL AREA ENTRY

Program, CODE, READONLY

11.1.

PROGRAM EXAMPLES

93

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

Main

LDR EOR LDRB CMP BHI ADD LDRB STR SWI AREA DCB DCB DCB DCB DCB DCB DCB DCB DCB DCB ALIGN AREA DCB ALIGN AREA DCD END

R0, =Data1 R1, R1, R1 R2, Digit R2, #9 Done R0, R0, R2 R1, [R0] R1, Result &11 Data1, DATA &3F &06 &5B &4F &66 &6D &7D &07 &7F &6F Data2, DATA &05 Data3, DATA 0

;load the start address of the table ;clear register for the code ;get the digit to encode ;is it a valid digit? ;clear the result ;advance the pointer ;and get the next byte ;store the result ;all done ;the binary conversions table

Done

Table

Digit

;the number to convert

Result

;storage for result

11.1.3 ASCII to Decimal

Program 11.3:

dectonib.s
Ch7Ex4

Convert an ASCII numeric character to decimal

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

convert an ASCII numeric character to decimal TTL AREA ENTRY

Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

Done

MOV LDRB SUBS BCC CMP BHI MOV STR SWI AREA DCB ALIGN

R1, #-1 R0, Char R0, R0, #"0" Done R0, #9 Done R1, R0 R1, Result &11 Data1, DATA &37

;set -1 as error flag ;get the character ;convert and check if character is < 0 ;if so do nothing ;check if character is > 9 ;if so do nothing ;otherwise.... ;.....store the decimal no ;all done ;ASCII representation of 7

Char

94

CHAPTER 11.

CODE CONVERSION

24 25 26 27

Result

AREA DCD END

Data2, DATA 0

;storage for result

11.1.4 Binary-Coded Decimal to Binary

Program 11.4a:

ubcdtohalf.s
Ch7Ex5

Convert an unpacked BCD number to binary

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

convert an unpacked BCD number to binary TTL AREA ENTRY

Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

LDR MOV MOV MOV ADD MOV MOV ADD LDRB ADD SUBS BNE STR SWI

R0, R5, R1, R2, R1, R3, R3, R1,

=BCDNum #4 #0 #0 R1, R1 R1 R3, LSL #2 R1, R3

;load address of BCD number ;init counter ;clear result register ;and final register ;multiply by 2 ;mult by 8 (2 x 4) ;= mult by 10 ;load digit and incr address ;add the next digit ;decr counter ;if counter != 0, loop ;store the result ;all done ;an unpacked BCD number

Loop

R4, [R0], #1 R1, R1, R4 R5, R5, #1 Loop R1, Result &11 Data1, DATA &02,&09,&07,&01 Data2, DATA 0

BCDNum

AREA DCB ALIGN AREA DCD END

Result

;storage for result

Program 11.4b:

ubcdtohalf2.s
Ch7Ex6

Convert an unpacked BCD number to binary using MUL

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

convert an unpacked BCD number to binary using MUL TTL AREA ENTRY

Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

LDR MOV MOV MOV MOV

R0, R5, R1, R2, R7,

=BCDNum #4 #0 #0 #10

;load address of BCD number ;init counter ;clear result register ;and final register ;multiplication constant

11.1.

PROGRAM EXAMPLES

95

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

Loop

MOV MUL LDRB ADD SUBS BNE STR SWI

R6, R1 R1, R6, R7 R4, [R0], #1 R1, R1, R4 R5, R5, #1 Loop R1, Result &11 Data1, DATA &02,&09,&07,&01 Data2, DATA 0

;mult by 10 ;load digit and incr address ;add the next digit ;decr counter ;if count != 0, loop ;store the result ;all done ;an unpacked BCD number

BCDNum

AREA DCB ALIGN AREA DCD END

Result

;storage for result

11.1.5 Binary Number to ASCII String

Program 11.5:

halftobin.s

Store a 16bit binary number as an ASCII string of '0's and '1's

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

store a 16bit binary number as an ASCII string of '0's and '1's TTL AREA ENTRY Ch7Ex7 Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

LDR ADD LDRB MOV MOV LDR MOVS BCS STRB BAL STRB SUBS BNE SWI

R0, R0, R6, R2, R3, R1,

=String R0, #16 String #"1" #"0" Number

;load startr address of string ;adjust for length of string ;init counter ;load character '1' to register ;load the number to process ;rotate right with carry ;if carry set branch (LSB was a '1' bit) ;otherwise store "0" ;and branch to counter code ;store a "1" ;decrement counter ;loop while not 0

Loop

Loopend Decr

R1, R1, ROR #1 Loopend R3, [R0], #-1 Decr R2, [R0], #-1 R6, R6, #1 Loop &11 Data1, DATA &31D2 Data2, DATA 16

Number

AREA DCD ALIGN AREA DCB ALIGN END

;a 16 bit binary number number

String

;storage for result

96

CHAPTER 11.

CODE CONVERSION

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F

3F 06 5B 4F 66 6D 7D 07 7F 6F 77 7C 3A 5E 7A 71

7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

6 g 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1

5 f 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1

4 e 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1

3 d 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 0

2 c 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 0

1 b 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 0 0

0 a 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 1

a f e g d b c

Figure 11.1: Seven-Segment Display

11.2

Problems

11.2.1 ASCII to Hexadecimal

Convert the contents of the store the result in the

A_DIGIT variable from an ASCII character to a hexadecimal digit and H_DIGIT variable. Assume that A_DIGIT contains the ASCII representation

of a hexadecimal digit (7 bits with MSB=0). Sample Problems:

Input: Output:

A_DIGIT H_DIGIT

43 ( C) 0C

Test A

36 ( 6) 06

Test B

11.2.2 Seven-Segment to Decimal

Convert the contents of the

NUMBER

store the result in the

CODE variable from a seven-segment code to a decimal number and NUMBER variable. If CODE does not contain a valid seven-segment code, set

to FF16 . Use the seven-segment table given in Figure 11.1 and try to match codes.

Sample Problems:

Input: Output:

CODE NUMBER

Test A 4F 03

Test B 28 FF

11.2.3 Decimal to ASCII

Convert the contents of the variable the result in the variable

CHAR

CHAR.

DIGIT

from decimal digit to an ASCII character and store

If the number in

DIGIT

is not a decimal digit, set the contents of

to an ASCII space (20 16 ).

Sample Problems:

Input: Output:

DIGIT CHAR

Test A 07 37 (7)

Test B 55 20 (Space)

11.2.

PROBLEMS

97

11.2.4 Binary to Binary-Coded-Decimal

Convert the contents of the variable number in

NUMBER
NUMBER STRING

NUMBER to four BCD digits in the STRING variable.

The 32-bit

is unsigned and less than 10,000.

Sample Problem:
Input: Output: 1C52 07 02 05 00 (7250 10 ) (7) (2) (5) (0)

11.2.5 Packed Binary-Coded-Decimal to Binary String

Convert the eight digit packed binary-coded-decimal number in the number in a

NUMBER

BCDNUM

variable into a 32-bit

variable.

Sample Problem:
Input: Output:

BCDNUM NUMBER

92529679 0583E409 1 6 (92529679 1 0)

11.2.6 ASCII string to Binary number

Convert the eight ASCII characters in the variable variable ASCII

STRING to an 8-bit binary number in the NUMBER. Clear the byte variable ERROR if all the ASCII characters are either ASCII 1 or 0; otherwise set ERROR to all ones (FF16 ).
Test A 31 31 30 31 30 30 31 30 (1) (1) (0) (1) (0) (0) (1) (0) (1101 0010) ( ) 31 31 30 31 30 37 31 30 00 FF Test B (1) (1) (0) (1) (0) (7) (1) (0) ( (

Sample Problems:

Input:

STRING

Output:

NUMBER ERROR

D2 0

No Error

Valid Error

) )

98

CHAPTER 11.

CODE CONVERSION

12

Arithmetic

Much of the arithmetic in some microprocessor applications consists of multiple-word binary or decimal manipulations. sequences of instruction. Most processors provide for both signed and unsigned binary arithmetic. are the same whether the numbers are signed or unsigned. Multiple-precision binary arithmetic requires simple repetitions of the basic instructions. The Signed numbers are The processor provides for decimal addition and subtraction, but does not provide for decimal multiplication or division, you must implement these operations with

represented in two's complement form. This means that the operations of addition and subtraction

Carry ag transfers information between words. It is set when an addition results in a carry or a subtraction results in a borrow. Add with Carry and Subtract with Carry use this information from the previous arithmetic operation. Decimal arithmetic is a common enough task for microprocessors that most have special instructions for this purpose. These instructions may either perform decimal operations directly or correct the results of binary operations to the proper decimal form. terminals. You can implement decimal multiplication and division as series of additions and subtractions, respectively. Extra storage must be reserved for results, since a multiplication produces a result twice as long as the operands. A division contracts the length of the result. Multiplications and divisions are time-consuming when done in software because of the repeated operations that are necessary. Decimal arithmetic is essential in such applications as point-of-sale terminals, check processors, order entry systems, and banking

12.1

Program Examples

12.1.2 64-Bit Addition

Program 12.2:

add64.s

64 Bit Addition

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

64 bit addition TTL AREA ENTRY 64 bit addition Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

LDR LDR LDR LDR LDR LDR ADDS

R0, R1, R2, R0, R3, R4, R6,

=Value1 [R0] [R0, #4] =Value2 [R0] [R0, #4] R2, R4

; ; ; ; ; ; ;

Pointer to first value Load first part of value1 Load lower part of value1 Pointer to second value Load upper part of value2 Load lower part of value2 Add lower 4 bytes and set carry flag
99

100

CHAPTER 12.

ARITHMETIC

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

ADC LDR STR STR SWI Value1 Value2 Result DCD DCD DCD END

R5, R1, R3 R0, =Result R5, [R0] R6, [R0, #4] &11 &12A2E640, &F2100123 &001019BF, &40023F51 0

; Add upper 4 bytes including carry ; Pointer to Result ; Store upper part of result ; Store lower part of result ; Value to be added ; Value to be added ; Space to store result

12.1.3 Decimal Addition

Program 12.3:

addbcd.s

Add two packed BCD numbers to give a packed BCD result

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47

add two packed BCD numbers to give a packed BCD result TTL AREA ENTRY Ch8Ex3 Program, CODE, READONLY 0x0000000F R0, R1, R2, R8, R0, R5, =Result BCDNum1 BCDNum2 Length R0, #3 #0 ;address for storage ;load the first BCD number ;and the second ;init counter ;adjust for offset ;carry ;copy what is left in the data register ;and the other number ;mask out everything except low order nibble ;mask out everything except low order nibble ;shift the original number one nibble ;shift the original number one nibble ;add the digits ;and the carry ;is it over 10? ;if not, reset the carry to 0 ;otherwise set the carry ;and subtract 10 ;carry reset to 0 ;copy what is left in the data register ;and the other number ;mask out everything except low order nibble ;mask out everything except low order nibble ;shift the original number one nibble ;shift the original number one nibble ;add the digits ;and the carry ;is it over 10? ;if not, reset the carry to 0 ;otherwise set the carry ;and subtract 10

Mask Main

EQU LDR LDR LDR LDRB ADD MOV MOV MOV AND AND MOV MOV ADD ADD CMP BLT MOV SUB B MOV MOV MOV AND AND MOV MOV ADD ADD CMP BLT MOV SUB B

Loop

RCarry1 Next

R3, R1 R4, R2 R3, R3, #Mask R4, R4, #Mask R1, R1, LSR #4 R2, R2, LSR #4 R6, R3, R4 R6, R6, R5 R6, #0xA RCarry1 R5, #1 R6, R6, #0xA Next R5, #0 R3, R1 R4, R2 R3, R3, #Mask R4, R4, #Mask R1, R1, LSR #4 R2, R2, LSR #4 R7, R3, R4 R7, R7, R5 R7, #0xA RCarry2 R5, #1 R7, R7, #0xA Loopend

12.1.

PROGRAM EXAMPLES

101

48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70

RCarry2 Loopend

MOV MOV ORR STRB SUBS BNE SWI

R5, #0 R7, R7, LSL #4 R6, R6, R7 R6, [R0], #-1 R8, R8, #1 Loop &11 Data1, DATA &04 &36, &70, &19, &85 Data2, DATA &12, &66, &34, &59 Data3, DATA 0

;carry reset to 0 ;shift the second digit processed to the left ;and OR in the first digit to the ls nibble ;store the byte, and decrement address ;decrement loop counter ;loop while > 0

AREA DCB ALIGN BCDNum1 DCB Length AREA BCDNum2 DCB Result AREA DCD END

;an 8 digit packed BCD number ;another 8 digit packed BCD number ;storage for result

12.1.4 Multiplication
16-Bit
Program 12.4a:

mul16.s

16 bit binary multiplication

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

16 bit binary multiplication TTL AREA ENTRY Ch8Ex1 Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

LDR LDR MUL MUL STR SWI

R0, R1, R0, R0, R0, &11

Number1 Number2 R1, R0 R0, R1 Result

;load first number ;and second ;x:= y * x ;won't work - not allowed ;all done ;a 16 bit binary number ;another

AREA Number1 DCD Number2 DCD ALIGN Result AREA DCD ALIGN END

Data1, DATA &706F &0161 Data2, DATA 0

;storage for result

32-Bit
Program 12.4b:

mul32.s

Multiply two 32 bit number to give a 64 bit result (corrupts R0 and

102

CHAPTER 12.

ARITHMETIC

R1)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

* *

multiply two 32 bit number to give a 64 bit result (corrupts R0 and R1) TTL AREA ENTRY Ch8Ex4 Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

LDR LDR LDR MOV MOV BIC BIC MUL MUL MUL MUL ADDS ADDCS ADDS ADC STR ADD STR SWI

R0, R1, R6, R5, R3, R0, R1, R2, R0, R1, R3, R0, R3, R2, R3,

Number1 Number2 =Result R0, LSR #16 R1, LSR #16 R0, R5, LSL R1, R3, LSL R0, R1 R3, R0 R5, R1 R5, R3 R1, R0 R3, #&10000 R2, R0, LSL R3, R0, LSR

#16 #16

#16 #16

;load first number ;and second ;load the address of result ;top half of R0 ;top half of R1 ;bottom half of R0 ;bottom half of R1 ;partial result ;partial result ;partial result ;partial result ;add middle parts ;add in any carry from above ;LSB 32 bits ;MSB 32 bits ;store LSB ;increment pointer ;store MSB ;all done ;a 16 bit binary number ;another

R2, [R6] R6, R6, #4 R3, [R6] &11 Data1, DATA &12345678 &ABCDEF01 Data2, DATA 0

AREA Number1 DCD Number2 DCD ALIGN Result AREA DCD ALIGN END

;storage for result

12.1.5 32-Bit Binary Divide

Program 12.5: divide.s  Divide a 32 bit binary no by a 16 bit binary no store the quotient and remainder there is no 'DIV' instruction in ARM!

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

* * *

divide a 32 bit binary no by a 16 bit binary no store the quotient and remainder there is no 'DIV' instruction in ARM! TTL AREA ENTRY Ch8Ex2 Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

Loop

LDR LDR MOV CMP BEQ CMP BLT

R0, Number1 R1, Number2 R3, #0 R1, #0 Err R0, R1 Done

;load first number ;and second ;clear register for quotient ;test for divide by 0 ;is the divisor less than the dividend? ;if so, finished

12.2.

PROBLEMS

103

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

Err Done

ADD SUB B MOV STR STR SWI

R3, R3, #1 R0, R0, R1 Loop R3, #0xFFFFFFFF R0, Remain R3, Quotient &11 Data1, DATA &0075CBB1 &0141 Data2, DATA 0 0

;add one to quotient ;take away the number you first thought of ;and loop ;error flag (-1) ;store the remainder ;and the quotient ;all done ;a 16 bit binary number ;another

AREA Number1 DCD Number2 DCD ALIGN AREA Quotient DCD Remain DCD ALIGN END

;storage for result ;storage for remainder

12.2

Problems

12.2.1 Multiple precision Binary subtraction

Subtract one multiple-word number from another. The length in words of both numbers is in the

LENGTH variable. The numbers themselves are stored NUM1 and NUM2 respectively. Subtract the number dierence in NUM1.
Sample Problem:
Input:

(most signicant bits First) in the variables in

NUM2

from the one in

NUM1.

Store the

LENGTH NUM1

3 2F5B8568 84C32546 706C9567

( (

Number of words in each number First number is The second number is Dierence is

2F5B856884C32546706C9567 16 )

NUM2

14DF4098 85B81095 A3BC1284

14DF409885B81095A3BC1284 16 )

Output:

NUM1

1A7C44CF FF0B14B0 CCB082E3

1A7C44CFFF0B14B0CCB082E3 16 )

That is, 2F5B856884C32546706C9567

14DF409885B81095A3BC1284 1A7C44CFFF0B14B0CCB082E3

12.2.2 Decimal Subtraction

Subtract one packed decimal (BCD) number from another. The length in bytes of both numbers is in the byte variable spectively. dierence in

LENGTH.

The numbers themselves are in the variables

Subtract the number contained in

NUM1.

NUM2

from the one contained in

NUM1 and NUM2 reNUM1. Store the

104

CHAPTER 12.

ARITHMETIC

Sample Problem:
Input:

LENGTH NUM1

4 36 70 19 85 78 34

( (

Number of bytes in each number The rst number is The second number is Dierence is

367019857834 10 )

NUM2

12 66 34 59 32 69

126634593269 10 )

Output:

NUM1

24 03 85 26 45 65

240385264565 10 )

That is,

367019857834

126634593269 240385264565

12.2.3 32-Bit by 32-Bit Multiply

Multiply the 32-bit value in the

NUM1

variable by the value in the

instruction and place the result in the 64-bit variable Sample Problem:
Input:

PROD1.

NUM2

variable. Use the

MULU

NUM1 NUM2

0024 68AC 0328 1088

The rst number is The second number is product is

2468AC 16 )

3281088 10 )

Output:

PROD1

0000 72EC B8C2 5B60

(MULU

72ECB8C25B60 16 )

PROD2

0000 72EC B8C2 5B60 (

Shift product is

72ECB8C25B60 16 )

13

Tables and Lists

Tables and lists are two of the basic data structures used with all computers. We have already seen tables used to perform code conversions and arithmetic. Tables may also be used to identify or respond to commands and instructions, provide access to les or records, dene the meaning of keys or switches, and choose among alternate programs. Lists are usually less structured than tables. Lists may record tasks that the processor must perform, messages or data that the processor must record, or conditions that have changed or should be monitored.

13.1

Program Examples

13.1.1 Add Entry to List

Program 13.1a:

match found
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

insert.s

Examine a table for a match - store a new entry at the end if no

* *

examine a table for a match - store a new entry at the end if no match found TTL AREA ENTRY Ch9Ex1 Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

Loop

LDR LDR LDR LDR LDR CMP BEQ SUBS LDR BNE SUB ADD STR STR

R0, R1, R3, R2, R4,

List NewItem [R0] [R0], #4 [R0], #4

;load ;load ;copy ;init

the start address of the list the new item the list counter counter and increment pointer

R1, R4 Done R2, R2, #1 R4, [R0], #4 Loop R0, R3, R3, R1, &11 Data1, DATA &4 &5376 &7615 &138A &21DC &20 R0, #4 R3, #1 Start [R0]

;does the item match the list? ;found it - finished ;no - get the next item ;get the next item ;and loop ;adjust the pointer ;increment the number of items ;and store it back ;store the new item at the end of the list

Done Start

SWI AREA DCD DCD DCD DCD DCD %

;length of list ;items

Store

;reserve 20 bytes of storage

105

106

CHAPTER 13.

TABLES AND LISTS

35 36 37 38 39 40

AREA NewItem DCD List DCD END

Data2, DATA &16FA Start

Program 13.1b:

extends insert.s
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

insert2.s

Examine a table for a match - store a new entry if no match found

* *

examine a table for a match - store a new entry if no match found extends Ch9Ex1 TTL AREA ENTRY Ch9Ex2 Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

Loop

LDR LDR LDR LDR CMP BEQ LDR CMP BEQ SUBS LDR BNE SUB ADD STR STR SWI AREA DCD DCD DCD DCD DCD %

R0, List R1, NewItem R3, [R0] R2, [R0], #4 R3, #0 Insert R4, [R0], #4 R1, R4 Done R2, R2, #1 R4, [R0], #4 Loop R0, R3, R3, R1, &11 Data1, DATA &4 &5376 &7615 &138A &21DC &20 Data2, DATA &16FA Start R0, #4 R3, #1 Start [R0]

;load the start address of the list ;load the new item ;copy the list counter ;init counter and increment pointer ;it's an empty list ;so store it ;not empty - move to 1st item ;does the item match the list? ;found it - finished ;no - get the next item ;get the next item ;and loop ;adjust the pointer ;incr list count ;and store it ;store new item at the end ;all done ;length of list ;items

Insert

Done Start

Store

;reserve 20 bytes of storage

AREA NewItem DCD List DCD END

13.1.2 Check an Ordered List

Program 13.2:

search.s

Examine an ordered table for a match

1 2 3 4

examine an ordered table for a match TTL AREA Ch9Ex3 Program, CODE, READONLY

13.1.

PROGRAM EXAMPLES

107

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

ENTRY Main LDR SUB LDR LDR CMP BEQ LDR CMP BEQ BHI SUBS LDR BNE R0, =NewItem R0, R0, #4 R1, NewItem R3, Start R3, #0 Missing R4, [R0], #-4 R1, R4 Done Missing R3, R3, #1 R4, [R0], #-4 Loop R3, #0xFFFFFFFF R3, Index &11 Data1, DATA &4 &0000138A &000A21DC &001F5376 &09018613 Data2, DATA &001F5376 0 Start ;load the address past the list ;adjust pointer to point at last element of list ;load the item to test ;init counter by reading index from list ;are there zero items ;zero items in list - error condition ;does the item match the list? ;found it - finished ;if the one to test is higher, it's not in the list ;no - decr counter ;get the next item ;and loop ;if we get to here, it's not there either ;flag it as missing ;store the index (either index or -1) ;all done ;length of list ;items

Loop

Missing MOV Done STR SWI AREA DCD DCD DCD DCD DCD

Start

AREA NewItem DCD Index DCW List DCD END

13.1.3 Remove an Element from a Queue

Program 13.3:

head.s

Remove the rst element of a queue

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

remove the first element of a queue TTL AREA ENTRY Ch9Ex4 Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

LDR STR CMP BEQ LDR STR

R0, Queue R1, Pointer R0, #0 Done R1, [R0] R1, Queue &11 Data1, DATA Item1 0 20

;load the head of the queue ;and save it in 'Pointer' ;is it NULL? ;if so, nothing to do ;otherwise get the ptr to next ;and make it the start of the queue

Done

SWI

AREA Queue DCD Pointer DCD DArea %

;pointer to the start of the queue ;space to save the pointer ;space for new entries

108

CHAPTER 13.

TABLES AND LISTS

23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

* each item consists of a pointer to the next item, and some data Item1 DCD Item2 ;pointer DCB 30, 20 ;data Item2 Item3 DCD DCB DCD DCB END Item3 30, 0xFF 0 30,&87,&65 ;pointer ;data ;pointer (NULL) ;data

13.1.4 Sort a List

Program 13.4:

sort.s

Sort a list of values  simple bubble sort

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

sort a list of values - simple bubble sort TTL AREA ENTRY Ch9Ex5 Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

Sort

LDR MOV LDRB MOV ADD MOV ADD LDRB LDRB CMP BCC STRB STRB ADD SUB CMP BHI CMP BNE SWI AREA DCB DCB AREA DCD END

R6, R0, R0, R8,

List #0 [R6] R6

;pointer to start of list ;clear register ;get the length of list ;make a copy of start of list ;get address of last element ;zero flag for changes ;move 1 byte up the list each ;iteration ;load the first byte ;and the second ;compare them ;branch if r2 less than r3 ;otherwise swap the bytes ;like this ;flag that changes made ;decrement address to check ;have we checked enough bytes? ;if not, do inner loop ;did we mke changes ;if so check again - outer loop ;all done

Next

R7, R6, R0 R1, #0 R8, R8, #1 R2, [R7], #-1 R3, [R7] R2, R3 NoSwitch R2, R3, R1, R7, [R7], #1 [R7] R1, #1 R7, #1

NoSwitch

R7, R8 Next R1, #0 Sort &11

Done Start

Data1, DATA 6 &2A, &5B, &60, &3F, &D1, &19 Data2, DATA Start

List

13.2.

PROBLEMS

109

13.1.5 Using an Ordered Jump Table

13.2 Problems

13.2.1 Remove Entry from List

Remove the value in the variable in the one. Sample Problems:
Test A Input Output Input Test B Output

LIST

ITEM

at a list if the value is present. The address of the list is

variable. The rst entry in the list is the number (in words) of elements remaining in

the list. Move entries below the one removed up one position and reduce the length of the list by

ITEM LIST

Table

Table

D010257

00000004 2946C121 2054A346 05723A64 12576C20

No change since item not in list

Table

D0102596

00000004 C1212546 D0102596 3A64422B 6C20432E

C1212546

0003 3A64422B 6C20432E



13.2.2 Add Entry to Ordered List

Insert the value in the variable of the list is in the

LIST

ITEM

into an ordered list if it is not already there. The address

variable. The rst entry in the list is the list's length in words. The list

itself consists of unsigned binary numbers in increasing order. Place the new entry in the correct position in the list, adjust the element below it down, and increase the length of the list by one. Sample Problems
Test A Input Output Input 7A35B310 Test B Output

ITEM LIST

Table

Table

7A35B310

00000004 09250037 29567322 A356A101 E235C203 

09250037 29567322

0005

Table

00000005 09250037 29567322 7A35B310 A356A101 E235C203

7A35B310 A356A101 E235C203

No change since ITEM already in list.

13.2.3 Add Element to Queue

Add the value in the variable in the variable

next )

where

ITEM to a queue. The address of the rst element in the queue is QUEUE. Each element in the queue contains a structure of two items ( value and next is either the address of the next element in the queue or zero if there is no next
was
at the end of the queue. The

element. The new element is placed at the end (tail) of the queue; the new element's address will be in the element that

next

entry of the new element will contain

zero to indicate that it is now the end of the queue. Sample Problem:

110

CHAPTER 13.

TABLES AND LISTS

item1 item2 item3

ITEM QUEUE

Value


Input

23854760 00000001 00000123 00123456

00000000 

Next item1 item2

Value

Output

23854760 00000001 00000123 00123456

23854760

item3 00000000

Next item1 item2

13.2.4 4-Byte Sort

Sort a list of 4-byte entries into descending order. The rst three bytes in each entry are an unsigned key with the rst byte being the most signicant. The fourth byte is additional information and should not be used to determine the sort order, but should be moved along with its key. number of entries in the list is dened by the word variable location The

LIST.

LENGTH.

The list itself begins at

Sample Problem:
Input Output

LENGTH LIST

00000004 414243 07 4A4B4C 13 4A4B41 37 444B41 3F (ABC) (JKL) (JKA) (DKA)

4A4B4C 13 4A4B41 37 444B41 3F 414243 07

INDEX

(JKL) (JKA) (DKA) (ABC)

13.2.5 Using a Jump Table with a Key

Using the value in the variable as a key to a jump table ( TABLE). Each entry in the jump table contains a 32-bit identier followed by a 32-bit address to which the program should transfer control if the key is equal to that identier. Sample Problem:

INDEX TABLE

00000010 00000001 00000010 0000001E

Proc1 Proc2 Proc3

Proc1 Proc2 Proc3

NOP NOP NOP

Control should be transfered to

Proc2,

the second entry in the table.

14

The Stack

111

112

CHAPTER 14.

THE STACK

15

Subroutines

None of the examples that we have shown thus far is a typical program that would stand by itself. Most real programs perform a series of tasks, many of which may be used a number of times or be common to other programs. The standard method of producing programs which can be used in this manner is to write subroutines that perform particular tasks. The resulting sequences of instructions can be written once, tested once, and then used repeatedly. There are special instructions for transferring control to subroutines and restoring control to the main program. We often refer to the special instruction that transfers control to a subroutine as Call, Jump, or Brach to a Subroutine. The special instruction that restores control to the main program is usually called Return. In the ARM the Branch-and-Link instruction ( BL) is used to Branch to a Subroutine. current value of the program counter (

starting address of the subroutine in the program counter. The ARM does not have a standard Return from Subroutine instruction like other processors, rather the programmer should copy the value in the Link Register into the Program Counter in order to return to the instruction after the Branch-and-Link instruction. Thus, to return from a subroutine you should the instruction:

PC

or

R15

) in the Link Register (

LR

or

R14

This saves the

) before placing the

MOV
before calling the nested subroutine.

PC, LR

Should the subroutine wish to call another subroutine it will have to save the value of the Link Register

15.1

Types of Subroutines

Sometimes a subroutine must have special characteristics.

Relocatable

The code can be placed anywhere in memory. You can use such a subroutine easily, regardless of other programs or the arrangement of the memory. A relocating loader is necessary to place the program in memory properly; the loader will start the program after other programs and will add the starting address or relocation constant to all addresses in the program.
Position Independent

The code does not require a relocating loader  all program addresses are expressed relative to the program counter's current value. Data addresses are held in-registers at all times. We will discuss the writing of position independent code later in this chapter.
Reentrant

The subroutine can be interrupted and called by the interrupting program, giving the correct results for both the interrupting and interrupted programs. Reentrant subroutines are required for good for event based systems such as a multitasking operating system (Windows or Unix) and embedded real time environments. It is not dicult to make a subroutine reentrant. The only requirement is that the subroutine uses just registers and the stack for its data storage, and the subroutine is self contained in that it does not use any value dened outside of the routine (global values).
Recursive

The subroutine can call itself. Such a subroutine clearly must also be reentrant.

113

114

CHAPTER 15.

SUBROUTINES

15.2

Subroutine Documentation

Most programs consist of a main program and several subroutines. This is useful as you can use known prewritten routines when available and you can debug and test the other subroutines properly and remember their exact eects on registers and memory locations. You should provide sucient documentation such that users need not examine the subroutine's internal structure. Among necessary specications are:

A description of the purpose of the subroutine A list of input and output parameters Registers and memory locations used A sample case, perhaps including a sample calling sequence

The subroutine will be easy to use if you follow these guidelines.

15.3

Parameter Passing Techniques

In order to be really useful, a subroutine must be general. For example, a subroutine that can perform only a specialized task, such as looking for a particular letter in an input string of xed length, will not be very useful. If, on the other hand, the subroutine can look for any letter, in strings of any length, it will be far more helpful. In order to provide subroutines with this exibility, it is necessary to provide them with the ability to receive various kinds of information. We call data or addresses that we provide the subroutine parameters. An important part of writing subroutines is providing for transferring the parameters to the subroutine. This process is called Parameter Passing. There are three general approaches to passing parameters: 1. Place the parameters in registers. 2. Place the parameters in a block of memory. 3. Transfer the parameters and results on the hardware stack. The registers often provide a fast, convenient way of passing parameters and returning results. often results in unforeseen side eects; and it lacks generality. The trade-o here is between fast execution time and a more general approach. Such a trade-o is common in computer applications at all levels. General approaches are easy to learn and consistent; they can be automated through the use of macros. On the other hand, approaches that take advantage of the specic features of a particular task require less time and memory. The choice of one approach over the other depends on your application, but you should take the general approach (saving programming time and simplifying documentation and maintenance) unless time or memory constraints force you to do otherwise. The

limitations of this method are that it cannot be expanded beyond the number of available registers; it

15.3.1 Passing Parameters In Registers

The rst and simplest method of passing parameters to a subroutine is via the registers. After calling a subroutine, the calling program can load memory addresses, counters, and other data into registers. For example, suppose a subroutine operates on two data buers of equal length. The subroutine might specify that the length of the two data buers be in the register buer are in the registers

R1

and

R2
; ; ; ;

. The calling program would then call the subroutine as follows:

R0

while the staring address of the two data

MOV LDR LDR BL

R0, #BufferLen R1, =BufferA R2, =BufferB Subr

Length of Buffer in R0 Buffer A beginning address in R1 Buffer B beginning address in R2 Call subroutine

15.3.

PARAMETER PASSING TECHNIQUES

115

Using this method of parameter passing, the subroutine can simply assume that the parameters are there. Results can also be returned in registers, or the addresses of locations for results can be passed as parameters via the registers. Of course, this technique is limited by the number of registers available. Processor features such as register indirect addressing, indexed addressing, and the ability to use any register as a stack pointer allow far more powerful and general ways of passing parameters.

15.3.2 Passing Parameters In A Parameter Block

Parameters that are to be passed to a subroutine can also be placed into memory in a parameter block. The location of this parameter block can be passed to the subroutine via a register.

LDR BL

R0, =Params Subr

; R0 Points to Parameter Block ; Call the subroutine

If you place the parameter block immediately after the subroutine call the address of the parameter block is automatically place into the Link Register by the Branch and Link instruction. The subroutine must modify the return address in the Link Register in addition to fetching the parameters. Using this technique, our example would be modied as follows:

BL DCD DCD DCD

Subr BufferLen BufferA BufferB

;Buffer Length ;Buffer A starting address ;Buffer B starting address

The subroutine saves' prior contents of CPU registers, then loads parameters and adjusts the return address as follows:

Subr

LDR LDR LDR

R0, [LR], #4 R1, [LR], #4 R2, [LR], #4

; ; ; ;

Read BuufferLen Read address of Buffer A Read address of Buffer B LR points to next instruction

The addressing mode

[LR], #4 will read the value at the address pointed to by the Link Register and then

move the register on by four bytes. Thus at the end of this sequence the value of LR has been updated to point to the next instruction after the parameter block. This parameter passing technique has the advantage of being easy to read. It has, however, the disadvantage of requiring parameters to be when the program is written. Passing the address of the parameter block in via a register allows the papa meters to be changed as the program is running.

xed

15.3.3 Passing Parameters On The Stack

Another common method of passing parameters to a subroutine is to push the parameters onto the stack. Using this parameter passing technique, the subroutine call illustrated above would occur as follows:

MOV STR LDR STR LDR STR BL

R0, #BufferLen R0, [SP, #-4]! R0, =BufferA R0, [SP, #-4]! R0, =BufferA R0, [SP, #-4]! Subr

; ; ; ; ; ;

Read Save Read Save Read Save

Buffer Length on the stack Address of Buffer A on the stack Address of Buffer B on the stack

The subroutine must begin by loading parameters into CPU registers as follows:

Subr

STMIA LDR LDR LDR ... LDMIA MOV

R12, {R0, R0, [R12, R1, [R12, R2, [R12,

R1, R2, R12, R14} #0] #4] #8]

; ; ; ;

save working registers to stack Buffer Length in D0 Buffer A starting address Buffer B starting address

; Main function of subroutine R12, {R0, R1, R2, R12, R14} PC, LR ; Recover working registers ; Return to caller

116

CHAPTER 15.

SUBROUTINES

In this approach, all parameters are passed and results are returned on the stack. The stack grows downward (toward lower addresses). This occurs because elements are pushed onto the stack using the pre-decrement address mode. The use of the pre-decrement mode causes the stack pointer to always contain the address of the last occupied location, rather than the next empty one as on some other microprocessors. This implies that you must initialise the stack pointer to a value higher than the largest address in the stack area. When passing parameters on the stack, the programmer must implement this approach as follows: 1. Decrement the system stack pointer to make room for parameters on the system stack, and store them using osets from the stack pointer, or simply push the parameters on the stack. 2. Access the parameters by means of osets from the system stack pointer. 3. Store the results on the stack by means of osets from the systems stack pointer. 4. Clean up the stack before or after returning from the subroutine, so that the parameters are removed and the results are handled appropriately.

15.4

Types Of Parameters

Regardless of our approach to passing parameters, we can specify the parameters in a variety of ways. For example, we can:
pass-by-value

Where the actual values are placed in the parameter list. The name comes from the fact that it is only the value of the parameter that is passed into the subroutine rather than the parameter itself. This is the method used by most high level programming languages.
pass-by-reference

The address of the parameters are placed in the parameter list. The subroutine can access the value directly rather than a copy of the parameter. This is much more dangerous as the subroutine can change a value you don't want it to.
pass-by-name

Rather than passing either the value or a reference to the value a string containing the name of the parameter is passed. This is used by very high level languages or scripting languages. This is very exible but rather time consuming as we need to look up the value associated with the variable name every time we wish to access the variable.

15.5

Program Examples
init1.s


Program 15.1a:

Initiate a simple stack

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

initiate a simple stack TTL AREA ENTRY Ch10Ex1 Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

LDR LDR LDR LDR LDR STMFD SWI

R1, R2, R3, R4,

Value1 Value2 Value3 Value4

;put some data into registers

R7, =Data2 R7, {R1 - R4} &11

;load the top of stack ;push the data onto the stack ;all done

15.5.

PROGRAM EXAMPLES

117

17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Value1 Value2 Value3 Value4

AREA DCD DCD DCD DCD

Stack1, DATA 0xFFFF 0xDDDD 0xAAAA 0x3333 Data2, DATA 40 0 ;reserve 40 bytes of memory for the stack

AREA Stack % StackEnd DCD END

Program 15.1b:

init2.s

Initiate a simple stack

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

initiate a simple stack TTL AREA ENTRY Ch10Ex2 Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

LDR LDR LDR LDR LDR STMDB SWI

R1, R2, R3, R4,

Value1 Value2 Value3 Value4

;put some data into registers

R7, =Data2 R7, {R1 - R4} &11 Stack1, DATA 0xFFFF 0xDDDD 0xAAAA 0x3333 Data2, DATA 40 0 ;reserve 40 bytes of memory for the stack ;all done

Value1 Value2 Value3 Value4

AREA DCD DCD DCD DCD

AREA Stack % StackEnd DCD END

Program 15.1c:

init3.s

Initiate a simple stack

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

initiate a simple stack TTL AREA ENTRY Ch10Ex3 Program, CODE, READONLY EQU R1, R2, R3, R4, 0x9000 Value1 Value2 Value3 Value4 ;put some data into registers

StackStart Main LDR LDR LDR LDR LDR STMDB

R7, =StackStart R7, {R1 - R4}

;Top of stack = 9000 ;push R1-R4 onto stack

118

CHAPTER 15.

SUBROUTINES

17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

SWI Value1 Value2 Value3 Value4 AREA DCD DCD DCD DCD AREA ^ DCD END

&11 Data1, DATA 0xFFFF 0xDDDD 0xAAAA 0x3333 Data2, DATA StackStart 0

;all done ;some data to put on stack

Stack1

;reserve 40 bytes of memory for the stack

Program 15.1d:

init3a.s

Initiate a simple stack

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

initiate a simple stack TTL AREA ENTRY Ch10Ex4 Program, CODE, READONLY EQU R1, R2, R3, R4, 0x9000 Value1 Value2 Value3 Value4 ;put some data into registers

StackStart start LDR LDR LDR LDR LDR STMDB SWI Value1 Value2 Value3 Value4 AREA DCD DCD DCD DCD AREA ^ DCD END

R7, =StackStart R7, {R1 - R4} &11 Data1, DATA 0xFFFF 0xDDDD 0xAAAA 0x3333 Data2, DATA StackStart 0

;Top of stack = 9000 ;push R1-R4 onto stack ;all done

Stack1

;reserve 40 bytes of memory for the stack

register
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Program 15.1e:

byreg.s

A simple subroutine example program passes a variable to the routine in a

* *

a simple subroutine example program passes a variable to the routine in a register TTL AREA ENTRY Ch10Ex4 Program, CODE, READONLY EQU 0x9000 ;variable stored to register ;branch/link ;store the result of the subroutine ;output to console ;all done

StackStart Main LDRB BL STRB SWI SWI

R0, HDigit Hexdigit R0, AChar &0 &11

15.5.

PROGRAM EXAMPLES

119

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Hexdigit

========================= Hexdigit subroutine ========================= Purpose Hexdigit subroutine converts a Hex digit to an ASCII character Initial Condition R0 contains a value in the range 00 ... 0F Final Condition R0 contains ASCII character in the range '0' ... '9' or 'A' ... 'F' Registers changed R0 only Sample case Initial condition Final condition CMP BLE ADD ADD MOV AREA DCB DCB END R0 = 6 R0 = 36 ('6')

R0, #0xA ;is it > 9 Addz ;if not skip the next R0, R0, #"A" - "0" - 0xA ;adjust for A .. F R0, R0, #"0" PC, LR Data1, DATA 6 0 ;convert to ASCII ;return from subroutine ;digit to convert ;storage for ASCII character

Addz

HDigit AChar

Program 15.1f:

using the stack

* *

bystack.s

A more complex subroutine example program passes variables to the routine

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

a more complex subroutine example program passes variables to the routine using the stack TTL AREA ENTRY Ch10Ex5 Program, CODE, READONLY EQU EQU 0x9000 0x0000000F ;declare where top of stack will be ;bit mask for masking out lower nibble ;Top of stack = 9000 ;Load number to register ;load address of string ;and store it ;and store number to stack ;branch/link ;all done

StackStart Mask Main LDR LDR LDR STR STR BL SWI

R7, =StackStart R0, Number R1, =String R1, [R7], #-4 R0, [R7], #-4 Binhex &11

* * * * * * * *

========================= Binhex subroutine ========================= Purpose Binhex subroutine converts a 16 bit value to an ASCII string Initial Condition First parameter on the stack is the value

120

CHAPTER 15.

SUBROUTINES

29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * Binhex

Second parameter is the address of the string Final Condition the HEX string occupies 4 bytes beginning with the address passed as the second parameter Registers changed No registers are affected Sample case Initial condition Final condition top of stack : 4CD0 Address of string The string '4''C''D''0' in ASCII occupies memory ;save stack pointer for later ;push contents of R0 to R6, and LR onto the stack ;init counter ;adjust pointer ;get the number ;get the address of the string ;move past the end of where the string is to be stored ;copy the number ;get the low nibble ;convert to ASCII ;store it ;shift to next nibble ;decr counter ;loop while still elements left ;restore the registers ;return from subroutine

MOV STMDA MOV ADD LDR LDR ADD MOV AND BL STRB MOV SUBS BNE LDMDA MOV

R8, R7, R1, R7, R2, R4, R4,

R7 {R0-R6,R14} #4 R7, #4 [R7], #4 [R7] R4, #4

Loop

R0, R2 R0, R0, #Mask Hexdigit R0, [R4], #-1 R2, R2, LSR #4 R1, R1, #1 Loop R8, {R0-R6,R14} PC, LR

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Hexdigit

========================= Hexdigit subroutine ========================= Purpose Hexdigit subroutine converts a Hex digit to an ASCII character Initial Condition R0 contains a value in the range 00 ... 0F Final Condition R0 contains ASCII character in the range '0' ... '9' or 'A' ... 'F' Registers changed R0 only Sample case Initial condition Final condition CMP BLE ADD ADD MOV AREA DCD R0 = 6 R0 = 36 ('6')

R0, #0xA ;is the number 0 ... 9? Addz ;if so, branch R0, R0, #"A" - "0" - 0xA ;adjust for A ... F R0, R0, #"0" PC, LR Data1, DATA &4CD0 ;change to ASCII ;return from subroutine ;number to convert

Addz

Number

15.5.

PROGRAM EXAMPLES

121

96 97 98

String

DCB END

4, 0

;counted string for result

Program 15.1g:

add64.s

A 64 bit addition subroutine

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60

a 64 bit addition subroutine TTL AREA ENTRY Ch10Ex6 Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

BL DCD DCD SWI

Add64 Value1 Value2 &11

;branch/link ;address of parameter 1 ;address of parameter 2 ;all done

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Add64

========================= Add64 subroutine ========================= Purpose Add two 64 bit values Initial Condition The two parameter values are passed immediately following the subroutine call Final Condition The sum of the two values is returned in R0 and R1 Registers changed R0 and R1 only Sample case Initial condition para 1 = = &0420147AEB529CB8 para 2 = = &3020EB8520473118 Final condition R0 = &34410000 R1 = &0B99CDD0 STMIA MOV SUB LDR LDR LDR LDR ADDS BCC ADD ADD LDMIA MOV AREA DCD DCD R12, {R2, R3, R14} R7, R12 R7, R7, #4 R3, [R7], #-4 R2, [R7], #-4 R1, [R7], #-4 R0, [R7], #-4 R1, R1, R3 Next R0, R0, #1 R0, R0, R2 R12, {R2, R3, R14} PC, LR Data1, DATA &0420147A, &EB529CB8 &3020EB85, &20473118 ;save registers to stack ;copy stack pointer ;adjust to point at LSB of 2nd value ;load successive bytes

Next

;add LS bytes & set carry flag ;branch if carry bit not set ;otherwise add the carry ;add MS bytes ;pop from stack ;and return ;number1 to add ;number2 to add

Value1 Value2

122

CHAPTER 15.

SUBROUTINES

61

END

Program 15.1h:

factorial.s

A subroutine to nd the factorial of a number

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60

a subroutine to find the factorial of a number TTL AREA ENTRY Ch10Ex6 Program, CODE, READONLY

Main

LDR BL STR SWI

R0, Number Factor R0, FNum &11

;get number ;branch/link ;store the factorial ;all done

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Factor

========================= Factor subroutine ========================= Purpose Recursively find the factorial of a number Initial Condition R0 contains the number to factorial Final Condition R0 = factorial of number Registers changed R0 and R1 only Sample case Initial condition Number = 5 Final condition FNum = 120 = 0x78 STR STR SUBS BNE MOV SUB B R0, [R12], #4 R14, [R12], #4 R0, R0, #1 F_Cont R0, #1 R12, R12, #4 Return Factor R14, [R12], #-4 R1, [R12], #-4 R0, R1, R0 PC, LR Data1, DATA 5 0 ;push to stack ;push the return address ;subtract 1 from number ;not finished ;Factorial == 1 ;adjust stack pointer ;done ;if not done, call again ;return address ;load to R1 (can't do MUL R0, R0, xxx) ;multiply the result ;and return ;number ;factorial

F_Cont Return

BL LDR LDR MUL MOV AREA DCD DCD END

Number FNum

15.6.

PROBLEMS

123

15.6

Problems

Write both a calling program for the sample problem and at least one properly documented subroutine for each problem.

15.6.1 ASCII Hex to Binary

Write a subroutine to convert the least signicant eight bits in register of a hexadecimal digit to the 4-bit binary representation of the digit. Place the result back into Sample Problems:

R0

from the ASCII representation

R0

Input: Output:

R0 R0

Test A
43 `C' 0C

Test B
36 `6' 06

15.6.2 ASCII Hex String to Binary Word

Write a subroutine that takes the address of a string of eight ASCII characters in the hexadecimal string into a 32-bit binary number, which it return is Sample Problem: Input:

R0

R0

. It should convert

R0 R0

STRING

String
42 `B' 32 `2' 46 `F' 30 `0' 0000B2F0

Output:

15.6.3 Test for Alphabetic Character

Write a subroutine that checks the character in register It should set the Zero ag if the character is alphabetic, and reset the ag if it is not. Sample Problems:

R0

to see if it is alphabetic (upper- or lower-case).

Input: Output:

R0 Z

Test A
47 `G' FF

Test B
36 `6' 00

Test C
6A `j' FF

15.6.4 Scan to Next Non-alphabetic

Write a subroutien that takes the address of the start of a text string in register

isalpha

address of the rst non-alphabetic character in the string in register subroutine you have just dene.

R1

. You should consider using the

R1

and returns the

Sample Problems:

Input:

R1 R1

String

Test A String
43 `C' 61 `a' 74 `t'

6100

32 `2' 50 `P' 49 `I' 0D CR

Output:

String
(CR)

0D CR + 4

(2)

String

+ 0

124

CHAPTER 15.

SUBROUTINES

15.6.5 Check Even Parity

Write a subroutine that takes the address of a counted string in the register set the even number of set bits in each character of the string. If all the bytes have an even parity then it should

R0

. It should check for an

-ag, if one or more bytes have an odd parity it should clear the

-ag.

Sample Problems:

Input:

R0 Z

String

Test A String
03 47 AF 18 00

Test B String
03 47 AF 19 FF

Output:

Note that 19 16 is 0001 1001 2 which has three 1 bits and is thus has an odd parity.

15.6.6 Check the Checksum of a String

Write a subroutine to calculate the 8-bit checksum of the counted string pointed to by the register and compares the calculated checksum with the 8-bit checksum at the end of the string. It should set the

R0

-ag if the checksums are equal, and reset the ag if they are not.

Sample Problems:

Input:

R0

String
Z

String
03 41 42 43 C6 Set

Test A (Length) (`A') (`B') (`C') (Checksum)

03

String

Test B (Length) (`a') (`b') (`c') (

61 62 63 C6 Clear

Checksum should be 26</em>

Output:

15.6.7 Compare Two Counted Strings

Write a subroutine to compare two ASCII strings. The rst byte in each string is its length. Return the result in the condition codes; i.e., the the second, the

Note that ABCD is lexically greater than ABC.

-ag will be set if the strings are equal, no ags are set if the second is prior to the rst.

-ag will be set if the rst string is lexically less than (prior to)

16

Interrupts and Exceptions

125

126

CHAPTER 16.

INTERRUPTS AND EXCEPTIONS

ARM Instruction Denitions

This appendix describes every ARM instruction, in terms of:

Operation

A Register Transfer Language (RTL) / pseudo-code description of what the instruction does. For details of the register transfer language, see section ?? on page ??.
Syntax

<cc> Condition Codes <op1> Data Movement Addressing Modes <op2> Memory Addressing Modes <S> Set Flags bit
Description

Written description of what the instruction does. This will interpret the formal description given in the operation part. It will also describe any additional notations used in the Syntax part.
Exceptions

This gives details of which exceptions can occur during the instruction. Prefetch Abort is not listed because it can occur for any instruction.
Usage

Suggestions and other information relating to how an instruction can be used eectively.
Condition Codes

Indicates what happens to the CPU Condition Code Flags if the set ags option where to be set.
Notes

Contain any additional explanation that we can not t into the previous categories.

Appendix B provides a summary of the more common instructions in a more compact manner, using the operation section only.

ADC
Operation

Add with Carry

Syntax Description

cc : Rd Rn + op1 + CPSR(C) cc S : CPSR ALU(Flags) ADC cc S Rd Rn op1

, , The

ADC

value of

based on the result.

Usage

Rn

(Add with Carry) instruction adds the value of and stores the result in

Rd

. The condition code ags are optionally updated,

op1

and the Carry ag to the

ADC

is used to synthesize multi-word addition. If register pairs

64-bit values (where

leave the 64-bit sum in

R0

R2 R4 R5
and ,

hold the least signicant words) the following instructions

R0 R1
,

and

R2 R3
,

hold

ADDS ADC

R4,R0,R2 R5,R1,R3

If the second instruction is changed from:

ADC

R5,R1,R3
127

128

A.3 Bitwise AND (AND)

to:

ADCS

R5,R1,R3

the resulting values of the ags indicate:

N The 64-bit addition produced a negative result. C An unsigned overow occurred. V A signed overow occurred. Z The most signicant 32 bits are all zero.

The following instruction produces a single-bit Rotate Left with Extend operation (33-bit rotate through the Carry ag) on

R0

See

a similar rotation to the right.

Condition Codes

Data-processing operands - Rotate right with extend

ADCS

R0,R0,R0

for information on how to perform

The N and Z ags are set according to the result of the addition, and the C and V ags are set according to whether the addition generated a carry (unsigned overow) and a signed overow, respectively.

ADD
Operation

Add

Syntax Description

Adds the value of register

cc : Rd Rn + op1 cc S : CPSR ALU(Flags) ADD cc S Rd Rn op1 op1

, ,

Rd

to the value of register

. The condition code ags are optionally updated, based on the result.

Rn

, and stores the result in the destination

Usage

The

ADD ADD ADD ADD

instruction is used to add two values together to produce a third.

To increment a register value in

Rx

use:

Rx, Rx, #1

Constant multiplication of

Rx

by

2n + 1

into

Rd

can be performed with:

Rd, Rx, Rx, LSL #n Rs, PC, #offset

must be the dierence between the required address and the address

To form a PC-relative address use:

where the

held in the PC, where the PC is the address of the

Condition Codes

oset

ADD

instruction itself plus 8 bytes.

The N and Z ags are set according to the result of the addition, and the C and V ags are set according to whether the addition generated a carry (unsigned overow) and a signed overow, respectively.

AND
Operation

Bitwise AND

Syntax Description

The

optionally updated, based on the result.

cc : Rd Rn op1 cc S : CPSR ALU(Flags) AND cc S Rd Rn op1 AND op1

, ,

instruction performs a bitwise AND of the value of register

, and stores the result in the destination register

Rd

. The condition code ags are

Rn

with the value of

A.4 Branch, Branch and Link (B, BL)

129

Usage

AND

is most useful for extracting a eld from a register, by ANDing the register with a

mask value that has 1s in the eld to be extracted, and 0s elsewhere.

Condition Codes

The N and Z ags are set according to the result of the operation, and the C ag is set to the carry output generated by (see 5.1 on page 45) The V ag is unaected.

op1

B, BL
Operation

Branch, Branch and Link

Syntax Description

cc L : LR PC + 8 cc : PC PC + oset B L cc oset
The

(Branch) and

BL

(Branch and Link) instructions cause a branch to a target address,

and provide both conditional and unconditional changes to program ow.

R14

The

BL
).

(Branch and Link) instruction stores a return address in the link register (

LR

or

The

is calculated by adding the oset to the program counter ( of the branch instruction plus 8.

oset

species the target address of the branch. The address of the next instruction

PC

) which contains the address

The branch instructions can specify a branch of approximately

Usage

32MB.

The

BL

instruction is used to perform a subroutine call.

achieved by copying the methods:

LR

to the

PC

The return from subroutine is

. Typically, this is done by one of the following

Executing a

MOV PC,R14

instruction.

Storing a group of registers and R14 to the stack on subroutine entry, using an instruction of the form:

STMFD R13!,{ LDMFD R13!,{

Condition Codes

registers ,R14} registers ,PC}

and then restoring the register values and returning with an instruction of the form:

The condition codes are not eected by this instruction.

Notes

Branching backwards past location zero and forwards over the end of the 32-bit address space is UNPREDICTABLE.

CMP
Operation

Compare

Syntax Description

cc : ALU(0) Rn - op1 cc : CSPR ALU(Flags) CMP cc Rn op1

, The

CMP

(Compare) instruction compares a register value with another arithmetic value. from

The condition ags are updated, based on the result of subtracting subsequent instructions can be conditionally executed.
Condition Codes

op1

Rn

, so that

The N and Z ags are set according to the result of the subtraction, and the C and V ags are set according to whether the subtraction generated a borrow (unsinged underow) and a signed overow, respectively.

130

A.7 Load Multiple (LDM)

EOR
Operation

Exclusive OR

Syntax Description

cc : Rd Rn op1 cc S : CPSR ALU(Flags) EOR cc S Rd Rn op1

, , The EOR (Exclusive OR) instruction performs a bitwise Exclusive-OR of the value of register The condition code ags are optionally updated, based on the result.

Rn

with the value of

op1

, and stores the result in the destination register

Rd

Usage

EOR can be used to invert selected bits in a register. For each bit, EOR with 1 inverts that bit, and EOR with 0 leaves it unchanged.

Condition Codes

The N and Z ags are set according to the result of the operation, and the C ag is set to the carry output bit generated by the shifter. The V ag is unaected.

LDM
Operation

Load Multiple

Syntax Description

IA: addr Rn IB: addr Rn + 4 DA: addr Rn - (# registers * 4) + 4 DB: addr Rn - (# registers * 4) for each register Ri in registers IB: addr addr + 4 DB: addr addr - 4 Ri M(addr) IA: addr addr + 4 DA: addr addr - 1 ! : Rn addr LDM cc mode Rn ! registers
, { } The LDM (Load Multiple) instruction is useful for block loads, stack operations and procedure exit sequences. It loads a subset, or possibly all, of the general-purpose registers from sequential memory locations. The general-purpose registers loaded can include the the

if

cc

PC

is treated as an address and a branch occurs to that address.

PC

. If they do, the word loaded for

The register listed in directed by

registers mode

Rn

points to the memory local to load the values from. Each of the registers is loaded in turn, reading each value from the next memory address as , one of: IB DB IA DA Increment Before Decrement Before Increment After Decrement After ) causes the base register to be modied to hold the

The base register writeback option ( address of the nal valued loaded.

The register are loaded in sequence, the lowest-numbered register from the lowest memory address, through to the highest-numbered register from the highest memory address. If the

loaded into the

Exceptions

PC R15
(

) is specied in the register list, the instruction causes a branch to the address

PC

Data Abort

Condition Codes

The condition codes are not eected by this instruction.

A.8 Load Register (LDR)

131

Notes

If the base register (

), the nal value of

Rn

Rn

is specied in

is UNPREDICTABLE.

registers

, and base register writeback is specied

LDR
Operation Syntax Description

Load Register

The

cc : Rd M( op2 ) LDR cc Rd op2 LDR op1

,

(Load Register) instruction loads a word from the memory address calculated by

If the

address, then branches to that address.

Exceptions Usage

PC

and writes it to register

is specied as register

Rd Rd
.

, the instruction loads a data word which it treats as an

Data Abort Using the

independent code. Combined with a suitable addressing mode, the destination register is the branches to that address.

PC

as the base register allows PC-relative addressing, which facilitates position-

LDR

allows 32-bit memory

data to be loaded into a general-purpose register where its value can be manipulated. If

PC

, this instruction loads a 32-bit address from memory and

To synthesize a Branch with Link, precede the

Condition Codes

LDR

instruction with

MOV LR, PC.

The condition codes are not eected by this instruction.

Notes

If

byte. The result is UNPREDICTABLE and the If

Rn

, the results are UNPREDICTABLE.

op2 op2

species an address that is not word-aligned, the instruction attempts to load a

LDRB

instruction should be used.

species base register writeback (!), and the same register is specied for

Rd

and

If the

UNPREDICTABLE.

PC R15
(

) is specied for

Rd

, the value must be word alligned otherwise the result is

LDRB
Operation

Load Register Byte

Syntax Description

The by

cc : Rd (7:0) M( op2 ) cc : Rd (31:8) 0 LDR cc B Rd op2 LDRB op2

,

(Load Register Byte) instruction loads a byte from the memory address calculated

, zero-extends the byte to a 32-bit word, and writes the word to register

Rd

Exceptions Usage

Data Abort

LDRB

allows 8-bit memory data to be loaded into a general-purpose register where it can

be manipulated. Using the

independent code.
Condition Codes

PC

as the base register allows PC-relative addressing, to facilitate position-

The condition codes are not eected by this instruction.

Notes

If the If

Rn MOV
Operation

, the results are UNPREDICTABLE.

op2

PC R15
(

) is specied for

Rd

, the result is UNPREDICTABLE.

species base register writeback (!), and the same register is specied for

Rd

and

Move

cc : Rd op1 cc S : CPSR ALU(Flags)

132

A.12 Bitwise OR (ORR)

Syntax Description

MOV
The

cc S Rd op1
,

MOV

(Move) instruction moves the value of

condition code ags are optionally updated, based on the result.

Usage

op1

to the destination register

Rd

. The

MOV

is used to: Move a value from one register to another. Put a constant value into a register. Perform a shift without any other arithmetic or logical operation. A left shift by n can be used to multiply by 2 . When the

PC

is the destination of the instruction, a branch occurs. The instruction:

MOV
page 129).
Condition Codes

PC, LR

can therefore be used to return from a subroutine (see instructions

, and

BL

on

The N and Z ags are set according to the value moved (post-shift if a shift is specied), and the C ag is set to the carry output bit generated by the shifter (see 5.1 on page 45). The V ag is unaected.

MVN
Operation

Move Negative

Syntax Description

based on the result.

Usage

cc : Rd op1 cc S : CPSR ALU(Flags) MVN cc S Rd op1 MVN op1 Rd

, The to the destination register is used to:

(Move Negative) instruction moves the logical one's complement of the value of . The condition code ags are optionally updated,

MVN

Write a negative value into a register. Form a bit mask. Take the one's complement of a value.

Condition Codes

The N and Z ags are set according to the result of the operation, and the C ag is set to the carry output bit generated by the shifter (see 5.1 on page 45). The V ag is unaected.

ORR
Operation

Bitwise OR

Syntax Description

cc : Rd Rn op1 cc S : CPSR ALU(Flags) ORR cc S Rd Rn op1 ORR Rn op1

, , The with the value of

(Logical OR) instruction performs a bitwise (inclusive) OR of the value of register , and stores the result in the destination register

condition code ags are optionally updated, based on the result.

Rd

The

Usage

ORR

can be used to set selected bits in a register. For each bit, OR with 1 sets the bit, and

OR with 0 leaves it unchanged.

Condition Codes

The N and Z ags are set according to the result of the operation, and the C ag is set to the carry output bit generated by the shifter (see 5.1 on page 45). The V ag is unaected.

A.13 Subtract with Carry (SBC)

133

SBC
Operation

Subtract with Carry

Syntax Description

cc : Rd Rn - op1 - NOT(CPSR(C)) cc S : CPSR ALU(Flags) SBC cc S Rd Rn op1 SBC SBC op1

, , The subtracts the value of register are optionally updated, based on the result.

(Subtract with Carry) instruction is used to synthesize multi-word subtraction. and the value of NOT(Carry ag) from the value of , and stores the result in the destination register

Rn

Rd

. The condition code ags

Usage

If register pairs

words), the following instructions leave the 64-bit dierence in

R0 R1
,

and

R2 R3
,

hold 64-bit values (

R0

and

R2 R4 R5
,

hold the least signicant :

SUBS SBC
Condition Codes

R4,R0,R2 R5,R1,R3

The N and Z ags are set according to the result of the subtraction, and the C and V ags are set according to whether the subtraction generated a borrow (unsigned underow) and a signed overow, respectively.
Notes

If

is specied, the C ag is set to:

0 if no borrow occurs 1 if a borrow does occur In other words, the C ag is used as a NOT(borrow) ag. This inversion of the borrow condition is usually compensated for by subsequent instructions. For example:

The

SBC

and

RSC

instructions use the C ag as a NOT(borrow) operand, performing

a normal subtraction if C == 1 and subtracting one more than usual if C == 0. The HS (unsigned higher or same) and LO (unsigned lower) conditions are equivalent to CS (carry set) and CC (carry clear) respectively.

STM
Operation

Store Multiple

Syntax Description

IA: addr Rn IB: addr Rn + 4 DA: addr Rn - (# registers * 4) + 4 DB: addr Rn - (# registers * 4) for each register Ri in registers IB: addr addr + 4 DB: addr addr - 4 M(addr) Ri IA: addr addr + 4 DA: addr addr - 4 ! : Rn addr STM cc mode Rn ! registers
, { } The

if

cc

STM (Store Multiple) instruction stores a subset (or possibly all) of the general-purpose

registers to sequential memory locations. The register in by

Rregisters

mode

is stored in turn, storing each register in the next memory address as directed

Rn

species the base register used to store the registers. Each register given

, which can be one of:

134

A.16 Store Register Byte (STRB)

IB DB IA DA If the base register writeback option ( with the new base address. Increment Before Decrement Before Increment After Decrement After

be stored. The registers are stored in sequence, the lowest-numbered register to the lowest memory address, through to the highest-numbered register to the highest memory address. If
Exceptions Usage

registers
(

) is specied, the base register (

Rn

) is modied

is a list of registers, separated by commas and species the set of registers to

R15 PC

) is specied in

registers

, the value stored is UNKNOWN.

Data Abort

STM

is useful as a block store instruction (combined with

and for stack operations. A single pointer in the process.

Condition Codes

STM

LDM

it allows ecient block copy)

used in the sequence of a procedure can push the

return address and general-purpose register values on to the stack, updating the stack

The condition codes are not eected by this instruction.

Notes

If If

R15 PC Rn Rn
( If

) is given as the base register (

is specied as

registers

Rn

), the result is UNPREDICTABLE.

and base register writeback (

is the lowest-numbered register specied in

is stored. Otherwise, the stored value of

! registers

) is specied: , the original value of

Rn

The value of

Rn

Rn

is UNPREDICTABLE.

should be word alligned.

STR
Operation Syntax Description

Store Register

STR

The

calculated by
Exceptions Usage

cc : M( op2 ) Rd cc Rd op2 STR op2

, .

(Store Register) instruction stores a word from register

Rd

to the memory address

Data Abort Combined with a suitable addressing mode, register into memory. Using the which facilitates position-independent code.

PC

STR

stores 32-bit data from a general-purpose

as the base register allows PC-relative addressing,

Condition Codes

The condition codes are not eected by this instruction.

Notes

Using the If

Rn

, the results are UNPREDICTABLE.

op2

PC

as the source register (

Rd

) will cause an UNKNOWN value to be written.

species base register writeback (!), and the same register is specied for

Rd

and

The address calculated by

word-alligned address is UNPREDICTABLE.

op2

must be word-alligned. The result of a store to a non-

STRB
Operation Syntax Description

Store Register Byte

cc : M( op2 ) Rd (7:0) STR cc B Rd op2

, The

STRB

register
Exceptions

Rd

(Store Register Byte) instruction stores a byte from the least signicant byte of to the memory address calculated by .

op2

Data Abort

A.17 Subtract (SUB)

135

Usage

Combined with a suitable addressing mode,

STRB

general-purpose register to memory. Using the

addressing, which facilitates position-independent code.

Condition Codes

PC

writes the least signicant byte of a as the base register allows PC-relative

The condition codes are not eected by this instruction.

Notes

Specing the

Rn SUB
Operation

If

, the results are UNPREDICTABLE.

op2

PC

as the source register (

Rd

) is UNPREDICTABLE.

species base register writeback (!), and the same register is specied for

Rd

and

Subtract

Syntax Description

cc : Rd Rn - op1 cc S : CPSR ALU(Flags) SUB cc S Rd Rn op1 op1

, , Subtracts the value of destination register result.

Rd

from the value of register

The condition code ags are optionally updated, based on the

Rn

, and stores the result in the

Usage

SUB

is used to subtract one value from another to produce a third. To decrement a register

value (in

Rx

) use:

SUBS SUBS

Rx, Rx, #1

is useful as a loop counter decrement, as the loop branch can test the ags for the

appropriate termination condition, without the need for a compare instruction:

CMP
Condition Codes

Rx, #0

This both decrements the loop counter in

Rx

and checks whether it has reached zero.

The N and Z ags are set according to the result of the subtraction, and the C and V ags are set according to whether the subtraction generated a borrow (unsigned underow) and a signed overow, respectively.
Notes

If

is specied, the C ag is set to:

1 if no borrow occurs 0 if a borrow does occur In other words, the C ag is used as a NOT(borrow) ag. This inversion of the borrow condition is usually compensated for by subsequent instructions. For example:

The

SBC

and

RSC

instructions use the C ag as a NOT(borrow) operand, performing

a normal subtraction if C == 1 and subtracting one more than usual if C == 0. The HS (unsigned higher or same) and LO (unsigned lower) conditions are equivalent to CS (carry set) and CC (carry clear) respectively.

SWI
Operation

Software Interrupt

Syntax Description Exceptions

cc : R14_svc PC + 8 cc : SPSR_svc CPSR cc : CPSR(mode) Supervisor cc : CPSR(I) 1 (Disable Interrupts) cc : PC 0x00000008 SWI cc value
Causes a SWI exception (see 3.4 on page 29). Software interrupt

136

A.20 Swap Byte (SWPB)

Usage

The

SWI

instruction is used as an operating system service call. The method used to select

which operating system service is required is specied by the operating system, and the Two typical methods are:

SWI

exception handler for the operating system determines and provides the requested service.

service are passed in general-purpose registers. is ignored, general-purpose register

and any parameters needed by the selected service are passed in other general-purpose registers.
Condition Codes

value value

species which service is required, and any parameters needed by the selected

R0

is used to select which service is wanted,

The ags will be eected by the operation of the software interrupt. It is not possible to say how they will be eected. The status of the condition code ags is unknown after a software interrupt is UNKNOWN.

SWP
Operation

Swap

Syntax Description

cc : ALU(0) M(Rn) cc : M(Rn) Rm cc : Rd ALU(0) SWP cc Rd Rm Rn

, , [ ] Swaps a word between registers and memory. given by the value of register address given by the value of the same register is specied for and the value at the memory address.

Rn Rn Rd

SWP

loads a word from the memory address

. The value of register and

, and the original loaded value is written to register

Rm

is then stored to the memory

Rm

, this instruction swaps the value of the register

Rd

. If

Exceptions Usage

Data Abort The

instructions
If the

SWP instruction can be used to implement semaphores.

.

For sample code, see

Semaphore

Condition Codes

The condition codes are not eected by this instruction.

Notes

If the address contained in

UNPREDICTABLE. If the same register is specied as DICTABLE.

PC

Rn

is non word-aligned the eect is UNPREDICTABLE.

is specied as the destination (

Rd

), address (

Rn

) or the value (

Rm

), the result is

Rn

and

Rm

, or

Rn

and

Rd

, the result is UNPRE-

If a data abort is signaled on either the load access or the store access, the loaded value is not written to not occur. . If a data abort is signaled on the load access, the store access does

Rd

SWPB
Operation

Swap Byte

Syntax Description

cc : ALU(0) M(Rn) cc : M(Rn) Rm(7:0) cc : Rd (7:0) ALU(0) SWP cc B Rd Rm Rn

, , [ ] Swaps a byte between registers and memory. given by the value of register stored to the memory address given by and

Rn

SWPB

loads a byte from the memory address

. The value of the least signicant byte of register

32-bit word, and the word is written to register the byte value at the memory address.

Rn

, the original loaded value is zero-extended to a

Rm

, this instruction swaps the value of the least signicant byte of the register and

Rd

. If the same register is specied for

Rm Rd
is

A.20 Swap Byte (SWPB)

137

Exceptions Usage

Data Abort The

SWPB

instruction can be used to implement semaphores, in a similar manner to that

shown for
Condition Codes

SWP

instructions in

Semaphore instructions
, or

The condition codes are not eected by this instruction.

Notes

If the

PC

is specied for

Rd Rn
,

If the same register is specied as DICTABLE.

Rm Rn

, the result is UNPREDICTABLE. and

Rm

, or

Rn

and

Rd

, the result is UNPRE-

If a data abort is signaled on either the load access or the store access, the loaded value is not written to not occur. . If a data abort is signaled on the load access, the store access does

Rd

138

A.20 Swap Byte (SWPB)

B
CS CC EQ NE VS VC

ARM Instruction Summary

cc: Condition Codes

Carry Set

Generic

Carry Clear Equal (Zero Set) Not Equal (Zero Clear) Overow Set Overow Clear

HI HS LO LS

Higer Than

Unsigned

Higer or Same Lower Than Lower Than or Same

GT GE LT LE MI PL

Greater Than Greater Than or Equal Less Than Less Than or Equal Minus (Negative) Plus (Positive)

Signed

op1: Data Access

Immediate Register Logical Shift Left Immediate Logical Shift Left Register Logical Shift Right Immediate Logical Shift Right Register Arithmetic Shift Right Immediate Arithmetic Shift Right Register Rotate Right Immediate Rotate Right Register Rotate Right with Extend

Rm Rm , Rm , Rm , Rm , Rm , Rm , Rm , Rm , Rm ,

value
LSL LSL LSR LSR ASR ASR ROR ROR RRX

value Rs # value Rs # value Rs # value

Rs

op1 op1 op1 op1 op1 op1 op1 op1 op1 op1 op1

IR(value)

Rm Rm Rm Rm Rm Rm + Rm + Rm > Rm >

IR(value)

CPSR(C)

Rs Rs Rs value Rs
>

(7:0) (7:0) (7:0)

IR(value) IR(value)

(4:0)

Rm >

CPSR(C)

op2: Memory Access

Immediate Oset Register Oset Scaled Register Oset Immediate Pre-indexed Register Pre-indexed Scaled Register Pre-indexed

[ n , # [ n, m] [ , m,

value ] Rn R shift # value ] [Rn, # value ]!

R R R R Rm]! [Rn, Rm, shift
[ n, [ n], # #

value ]!

op2 op2 op2 op2 Rn op2 Rn op2

Rn Rn op2 Rn op2 Rn

Rn Rn Rn Rn op2 Rn op2 Rn

+ IR(value) + + (

Rm Rm shift Rm Rm shift

IR(value))

+ IR(value) +

Immediate Post-indexed Register Post-indexed Scaled Register Post-indexed

R value [Rn], Rm [Rn], Rm, shift

or

op2

value

Rn Rn Rn Rn Rm Rn Rn Rm shift
+ +

op2

+ (

IR(value))

+ IR(value)

IR(value)

Where

shift

is one of:

LSL, LSR, ASR, ROR

RRX

and has the same eect as for

op1

139

140

APPENDIX B. ARM INSTRUCTION SUMMARY

ARM Instructions
Add with Carry Add Bitwise AND Branch Branch and Link Compare Exclusive OR Load Register Load Register Byte Move Move Negative Bitwise OR Subtract with Carry Store Register Store Register Byte Subtract Software Interrupt Swap Swap Byte

ADC ADD AND B BL

cc S cc S cc S cc cc CMP cc EOR cc S LDR cc LDR cc B MOV cc S MVN cc S ORR cc S SBC cc S STR cc STR cc S SUB cc S SWI cc SWP cc SWP cc B

Rd Rn Rd Rn Rd Rn
, , , ,

, , ,

oset oset Rn op1 Rd Rn op1 Rd op2 Rd op2 Rd op1 Rd op1 Rd Rn op1 Rd Rn op1 Rd op2 Rd op2 Rd Rn op1 value
, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

op1 op1 op1

Rd Rm Rn Rd Rm Rn
, , [ , [ ,

] ]

cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc

: : :

: PC : LR : PC : CSPR : : : : : : : :

Rd Rd Rd

: M( : M( : : :

Rd Rd Rd Rd Rd Rd Rd Rd

(7:0) (31:8)

: M( : M(

Rd Rd Rn Rd Rn

op2 op2
)

) )

op1 op1 op1 oset oset Rn op1 Rn op1 op2 op2 op1 op1 Rn op1 Rn op1
Rn Rn Rn
( + + & PC + PC + 8 PC + ) M( 0 ) M( ) |

+ CPSR(C)

Rd Rd Rn

- CPSR(C)

(7:0) -

op1

(7:0) )(7:0)

Rn Rm Rn Rm
M( M(

) )(7:0)

(7:0)

Index
Characters ASCII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 International . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Unicode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Condition Codes . . . . . . . . . . . 2829, 3132, 4243 Carry Flag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Mnemonics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31, 42 Negative Flag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Overow Flag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Zero Flag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Exceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2930 Data Abort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Fast Interrupt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Interrupt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Prefetch Abort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Reset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Software Interrupt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Undened . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Instructions ADC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 ADD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 AND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 B, BL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 CMP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 EOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 LDM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 LDR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 LDRB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 MOV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 MVN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 ORR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 SBC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 STM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 STR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 STRB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 SUB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 SWI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 SWP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 SWPB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 Programs add.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 add2.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5960 add64.s . . . . . 6364, 6970, 99100, 121122 addbcd.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100101 bigger.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62, 69 byreg.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118119 Registers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2528 General Purpose ( Link Register ( Stack Pointer ( bystack.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119121 countneg.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7374 countneg16.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 cstrcmp.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8687 dectonib.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9394 divide.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102103 factorial.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6465, 70, 122 halftobin.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 head.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107108 init1.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116117 init2.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 init3.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117118 init3a.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 insert.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105106 insert2.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 invert.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 largest16.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 move16.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 mul16.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 mul32.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101102 nibble.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 nibtohex.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9192 nibtoseg.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9293 normalize.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7576 padzeros.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8485 search.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106107 setparity.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8586 shiftleft.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6061 skipblanks.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 sort.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 strcmp.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8788 strlen.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8384 strlencr.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8283 sum16.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 sum16b.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7273 ubcdtohalf.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 ubcdtohalf2.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9495 wordtohex.s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Program Counter ( / Status Register (

R0 R12 LR R14 PC R15 SP R13 CPSR SPSR

 / / /

) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 ) . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 ) . . . . . . . . . . 28

) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8082 Counted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Fixed Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

141

142

INDEX

Terminated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81