HW4: Assembly Beyond NetRun

CS 301 Project, Dr. Lawlor

I'd like you to figure out and document how to compile a file full of x86 assembly code, and link it with some C++ code, on any machine other than NetRun.

Feel free to pick any assembler you like:

NASM (the "Netwide" assembler) is a small, portable, simple assembler that supports about a dozen different output formats, from Mac to Windows to raw binary machine code. We used it in class today.
YASM ("Yet another" assembler) supported 64-bit instructions slightly before NASM, so I switched NetRun to use yasm several years ago. They now both support 64-bit. Yasm has good Visual Studio integration via "vsyasm", which is installed in the Chapman Lab.
MASM (Microsoft/Macro assembler) used to come with every installation of Visual Studio. It's currently named "ML", but I've never used either one!
Or one not on this list! There's only one family of assemblers I'd recommend you avoid: the Linux gnu-based assemblers. These use the incompatible and really obtuse AT&T syntax (for example, "mov $3,%eax") that seems to get trickier every time I use it. They're easy to install on Mac or Linux, but using them is not for the faint of heart!

Instead of source code, I'd like you to prepare me a nicely formatted PDF document, including at least the following contents:

A brief header describing your name, date, and what exact hardware and software platform you'll be using here. For example, I might say "Dr. Lawlor's 2012 directions for how to useYASM from the command line on an x86-64 Ubuntu Linux 12.04 machine."
Clear, concise, easy to follow directions for how to call assembly from C++ on that platform. Be sure to include:

How to install the assembler (Example: Open a terminal and run "sudo apt-get install yasm make g++").
Anything special needed on the C++ side (Example: You do need to declare assembly functions with extern "C"). Give me a very small working example.
Anything special needed on the assembly side (Example: you do need to declare the functions as global, but there aren't any underscores or similar.) Again, a very small working example.

A well-designed screenshot (for a GUI) or text capture (for terminal commands) of you actually compiling and running some assembly. Artfully arranging the windows prior to capture is highly recommended, but no photoshop allowed!

For example, I just made a text capture like this (note you can still copy and paste this text, unlike an image):

olawlor@ozzy:/me/olawlor/tmp/yasm_demo$ sudo apt-get install yasm make g++
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
g++ is already the newest version.
make is already the newest version.
yasm is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 64 not upgraded.
olawlor@ozzy:/me/olawlor/tmp/yasm_demo$ cat > demo.cpp
#include <iostream>
extern "C" int diggit(void);
int main() {
	std::cout<<"Diggit="<<diggit()<<"\n";
	return 0;
}
olawlor@ozzy:/me/olawlor/tmp/yasm_demo$ 
olawlor@ozzy:/me/olawlor/tmp/yasm_demo$ cat > diggit.S
section .text
global diggit ; note no underscore on Linux
diggit:
	mov eax,1234
	ret
olawlor@ozzy:/me/olawlor/tmp/yasm_demo$ yasm -f elf64 diggit.S
olawlor@ozzy:/me/olawlor/tmp/yasm_demo$ g++ diggit.o demo.cpp 
olawlor@ozzy:/me/olawlor/tmp/yasm_demo$ ./a.out 
Diggit=1234
olawlor@ozzy:/me/olawlor/tmp/yasm_demo$

Turn your PDF document in via BlackBoard by midnight Monday, October 8.