The MASM Forum

Hi - I'm new to MASM
I've got the MASM32 software running and trying to compile my first program in it.
The Help says I needed to state:

    include \masm32\include\masm32.inc
    includelib \masm32\lib\masm32.lib

But then I keep getting this error:
   error A2005: symbol redefinition : RUN_SYNCH_PROCESS_EX

btw, heres the whole program:

.386
.model FLAT, STDCALL
.stack 4096
include \masm32\include\masm32.inc
includelib \masm32\lib\masm32.lib
ExitProcess PROTO, dwExitCode : DWORD

.code
main PROC
    mov eax, 10000h
    add eax, 40000h
    sub eax, 20000h
   
    INVOKE ExitProcess, 0
main ENDP
end main

Any clues appreciated.

.stack 4096
option casemap :none                      ; case sensitive

include \masm32\include\masm32.inc
includelib \masm32\lib\masm32.lib
includelib \masm32\lib\kernel32.lib


That will do the job. However, you would have less problems with the following structure:
include \masm32\include\masm32rt.inc  ; contains lots of useful settings

.code
AppName db "Masm32:", 0

start: MsgBox 0, "Hello World", addr AppName, MB_OK
exit

end start

Welcome to the forum :icon14:

Remove the .STACK line as well, in 32 bit PE files the stack sizes are set by the linker. If you need this later you can add it to a batch file for your application.

Wow! Thanks jj2007 and hutch--
ASM programming seems hopeful after all.
John T

I also get the same error even after using John T's code, it says fatal error A1000: cannot open file include \masm32\include\masm32rt.inc.
Same error after removing .stack part

is masm32 installed in the root folder of the drive (C:\masm32, D:\masm32, etc) ?

is your asm file on the same drive as the \masm32 folder ?

Nope dendave masm32 is in C:\masm32 and asm files are in D:\masm  .... but I have set the environment variable to c:\masm32\bin... thought it would work as it works in java

actually, masm allows the MASM, INCLUDE, and LIB environment variables to be used
however, the masm32 library is not designed to use them
the paths are hardcoded

so - it is easiest if the file you want to assemble is on the same drive as the masm32 install   :t

Sorry John T. I have used your thread to ask questions of mine. @dendave when i place the asm folder in D: drive it is working. I have copied the source code that you have suggested John T to use and typed >ml trial.asm but gives the following warnings and errors.
Assembling: trial.asm

************
ASCII build
*************
/z2
"trial.obj"
"trial.exe"
NUL
LINK : warning LNK4033: unrecognized option "z2"; ignored
trial.obj : warning LNK4033: converting object format from OMF to COFF
trial.exe : fatal error LNK1136: invalid or corrupt file

when I use the qeditor and run the program I get the output helloworld dialogue box. At least I got an outut after 4 days of trying. thank you

Hi amrak,

ml /c /coff trial.asm

If you are going to build a GUI application :

link /SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS trial.obj

For a console application :

link /SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE trial.obj

Thanks vortex, now its working... I actually did not know how to compile the program, now I know it.

I got a question...
I'm trying to use the Irvine32.inc to sent text to the console window.
I can includelib the Irvine32.lib just fine (have to proto my calls) but when I include the Irvine32.inc I get:
      warning a4011: multiple .model directives found
      error A2008: syntax error: TEXTEQU
      error A2008: syntax error: EQU

Further, if I just proto the calls like:
      WriteInt proto
      WriteString proto
I seem to be getting an invalid handle (seen thru OllyDbg) and a bad crash.

Stating:
      DumpRegs PROTO
Does'nt crash but does nothing at all - bad handle too.

In general I'm not even able to get the console window to show up - any ideas what I'm missing???
I figure either I'm not setting up and passing params right or mabey theres something I'm lacking from the Irvine32.inc file.
Dont know...
John

it would help if you show us a complete example
the way Kip tells you to set up the machine, i don't think you need to provide paths...

    INCLUDE     irvine32.inc
    INCLUDE     floatio.inc
    INCLUDE     macros.inc
    INCLUDELIB  kernel32.lib
    INCLUDELIB  user32.lib
    INCLUDELIB  Irvine32.lib

i don't set my machine up the way Kip says, so i add root-relative paths

        INCLUDE     \Masm32\Irvine\Irvine32.inc  ;adds SmallWin.inc, VirtualKeys.inc

        OPTION      CaseMap:None

        INCLUDE     \Masm32\Irvine\floatio.inc
        INCLUDE     \Masm32\Irvine\GraphWin.inc
        INCLUDE     \Masm32\Irvine\macros.inc

        INCLUDELIB  \Masm32\Irvine\kernel32.lib
        INCLUDELIB  \Masm32\Irvine\user32.lib
        INCLUDELIB  \Masm32\Irvine\Irvine32.lib

also, i prefer to use "CaseMap:None" so that function names are case sensitive
the Irvine32.inc file has that line in it, but it is commented out   :P

if you have it set up correctly, you don't have to prototype any Irvine32 functions

Hi Dave,

Quote from: dedndave on March 23, 2015, 03:24:23 AM
also, i prefer to use "CaseMap:None" so that function names are case sensitive
the Irvine32.inc file has that line in it, but it is commented out   :P

if you have it set up correctly, you don't have to prototype any Irvine32 functions

It seems that Kip is very popular among students, isn't he? What's the reason for that?

Gunther

he's popular among teachers and universities
they have to select books that are approved for accredited courses
if you want to write such a text book - getting that approval is a big step for sales  :P
of course, it's unlikely anyone on the board that makes the approvals knows assembly language

Quote from: dedndave on March 23, 2015, 09:17:38 AM
they have to select books that are approved for accredited courses
if you want to write such a text book - getting that approval is a big step for sales  :P
of course, it's unlikely anyone on the board that makes the approvals knows assembly language

What then is the basis of the decision?

Gunther

Hi Gunther,

Quote from: Gunther on March 24, 2015, 12:39:43 AM

Quote from: dedndave on March 23, 2015, 09:17:38 AM
they have to select books that are approved for accredited courses
if you want to write such a text book - getting that approval is a big step for sales  :P
of course, it's unlikely anyone on the board that makes the approvals knows assembly language

What then is the basis of the decision?

   Feedback from the teachers and students, after the first year, I
would hope.

Regards,

Steve N.

i don't really know how universities do it in the US
but, i know how public school books and curriculum are approved
an independant panel of educators in Texas selects all text books for the country   ::)
hopefully, the universities have something better

Kip has a little clout, here - as he is a professor, i believe

http://users.cis.fiu.edu/~irvinek/ (http://users.cis.fiu.edu/~irvinek/)

Hi:
I did quite a bit of Fortran ages ago, but have been forced to get into assembly for a project i'm working on.  I'm still trying to find the bolts to attach the training wheels to my PC.  Cheers.

As to the text selection - i got involved in that in the D.C. area a few years ago.  When a uni wants to introduce a course in "widgeting" say, it first finds a Subject Matter Expert (SME) to develop the course (normally they won't have one on staff already).  The SME is told what level of expertise is desired of his "graduates", and how many contact hours he has for the course.  He lays the course out, and normally is asked what he'd recommend for a text (since he is supposedly the SME, he should have one or two in mind).  Normally, that text is used for the first semester or two, at least until feedback is received from the students and other faculty on the selected text. 

I was once asked (whilst i was a graduate student), what did i think of a certain text (MacWilliams & Sloan) on error correcting code.  I was apprehensive, because i thought that one of the authors might be a close friend of my instructor.  I said that i found the section of Viterbi decoding to be "somewhat obscure".  The instructor laughed.  He said that he tried to explain that subject to the authors twice, and they missed it both times.  Apparently that section of the book is foolishness.  Don't believe it, just cause it's in a book!  *g*

I've found the earlier 16 bit texts (with attached disks) valuable, as i've never done this before.  I  tried to find a student or two in the D.C. area that was interested in writing a couple of short programs to read some disk files but was unsuccessful.  Consequently, i'm trying to do it myself.  This looks like a worthwhile place to start.  Cheers.

as mentioned....

in the upper right corner of the forum page is a link to download the masm32 package
it has help files, many examples, tutorials, etc

welcome to the forum   :t

viterbi isn't easy to understand - lol

maybe Kip was selected as the subject matter expert
i can understand that, based on the success of his 16-bit texts
he missed the mark in a few places when it came to 32-bit code for windows

Hi:
I heard this story some time ago.  I believe that the person involved was Dick Fineman (the youngest guy on the Manhattan project - but i might have that wrong.  According to the story, the person (who was a Nobel prize winner) was asked to review several books for public school use (high school, as i recall).  He was a little slow getting started, so had to hustle to make the deadline.  As he was reading through the books, he discovered that several were blank.  They had finished covers, but all internal pages were unprinted - absolutely nothing on them.  He turned in ratings on the books with printing in them, but didn't fill out the rating sheets for the blank ones.  When the "committee" convened to review the ratings, all the other committee members had rated ALL the books - including the blank ones.  Comments were solicited from the reviewers.  Several reviewers commented that they liked or didn't like parts of the BLANK books.  The Nobel prizewinner was taken to task by the chairman of the committee for not filling out all the review forms.  He replied that something must be wrong, because the copies that he had received were blank.  The publisher was asked about this, and said that the authors didn't have the proofs ready in time, so to make the book review deadline, they had furnished blank books - with the previously approved covers.  The Nobel holder asked HOW the other reviewers could have made comments on non-existent books.  This was covered up.  So much for "committee approval".  Cheers.

QuoteI've found the earlier 16 bit texts (with attached disks) valuable, as i've never done this before.  I  tried to find a student or two in the D.C. area that was interested in writing a couple of short programs to read some disk files but was unsuccessful.  Consequently, i'm trying to do it myself.  This looks like a worthwhile place to start.  Cheers.

I assume you need some stuff for DOS, right? If that's the case, you can still use Borland Pascal (Turbo Pascal 7) or Turbo C++, they both include Assembly natively along with their procedural and POO stuff.  :bgrin:

Hi, John T again..

Now I'm wondering: Is it possible to do SOURCE level debugging (for MASM) in Visual Studio 2013 Community?
It looks like (hmmm) I finally got VS set up to work in MASM but before I get more gray-hairs I was wondering if its worth pursuing.
If not I'll just stick with Notepad++ and OllyDbg.

deleted

Quote from: John T on June 16, 2015, 04:27:16 AMNow I'm wondering: Is it possible to do SOURCE level debugging (for MASM) in Visual Studio 2013 Community?

You can convince Olly to show you symbols, i.e. the names of your global variables, by specifying /Zi for the assembler and /debug for the linker. Symbols are really helpful for debugging, but there are limits, especially with macros. For example, a simple Print Str$("That's a number: %i\n", eax*xmm0/123) translates to 20 lines in the disassembly. OTOH, there is rarely a need to understand macros, unless they don't work (and then it's a case for the author, who is morally obliged to know what the 20 lines mean...).

And in any case, you can have symbols with qEditor, Notepad, Notepad++, RichMasm, RadAsm, ... no need to launch that behemoth of VS 8)

I only use Visual Studio 2013 Community for programming in ASM or C
you can find here (http://masm32.com/board/index.php?topic=3902.0) how to set it up

I have the idea that Visual Studio is not very appropriate for using macros in asm. As jj2007 mentions, debugger doesn't handle them as u might wish. Also, with VS u probably wouldn't use macros much, for that type of thing (more complicated routines) you'd use C. Does that make sense? Habran, do u use macros particularly? Does VS make sense for a macros "fan"?

GUNTHER,

Quote from: GUNTHERIt seems that Kip is very popular among students, isn't he? What's the reason for that?

An excellent question. I bought the Fifth Edition of his book (Assembly Language for x86 Processors, 7th edition, 2014 (http://kipirvine.com/asm/)),...it's really the only thing out there like a textbook, for beginning assembly programming. I think he originally included 16-bit DOS programming, when it was impossible to find anything useful on the subject, except the Intel Software Developers Manuals (http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/architectures-software-developer-manuals.html) (and, all the 16-bit DOS programming is still a large part of his book even though it's obsolete).
I found the Fifth Edition in the Library at the University of California,...and, I couldn't find anything else at that level, so I bought it.
It has many problems, though,...and, we get a lot of questions here at the MASM Forum from novices trying to use his source code examples and compiled libraries with the usual header files and libraries that are an integral part of the MASM package. They are not really compatible. Kip write overly simplistic code, and his examples are designed to be used only with other routines from the Irvine library (his routines usually don't take any parameters, and don't return anything). This just confuses novice MASM programmers, who when compiling simple programs generate a lot of annoying errors, and, are lost when trying to call routines from Irvine's libraries that are included in the typical initial code of a MASM program.

The best way for novices to test Irvine's code is to just copy a routine from Irvine's source code and paste it into the typical MASM program as an include file (that way they can simply just comment out the line that indicates the include file, and the program will initially compile and work correctly). Irvine's code must be modified to work with a typical MASM program, though, because it usually calls other Irvine routines (and they don't efficiently return useful data to a data variable stored in memory).

Here's a typical simple example program (from Chapter Three, Fifth Edition). Just to add and subtract a couple of integers, you have to build all this:
TITLE Add and Subtract          (AddSub.asm)

; This program adds and subtracts 32-bit integers.

INCLUDE Irvine32.inc

.code
main PROC

mov eax,10000h ; EAX = 10000h
add eax,40000h ; EAX = 50000h
sub eax,20000h ; EAX = 30000h
call DumpRegs

exit
main ENDP
END main

...and, then you must locate the DumpRegs routine, which is in the Irvine32 library (which a novice would link to):

;---------------------------------------------------
DumpRegs PROC
;
; Displays EAX, EBX, ECX, EDX, ESI, EDI, EBP, ESP in
; hexadecimal. Also displays the Zero, Sign, Carry, and
; Overflow flags.
; Receives: nothing.
; Returns: nothing.
; Last update: 6/22/2005
;
; Warning: do not create any local variables or stack
; parameters, because they will alter the EBP register.
;---------------------------------------------------
.data
saveIP  DWORD ?
saveESP DWORD ?
.code
pop saveIP ; get current EIP
mov saveESP,esp ; save ESP's value at entry
push saveIP ; replace it on stack
push eax ; save EAX (restore on exit)

pushfd ; push extended flags

pushfd ; push flags again, and
pop  eflags ; save them in a variable

call Crlf
mShowRegister EAX,EAX
mShowRegister EBX,EBX
mShowRegister ECX,ECX
mShowRegister EDX,EDX
call Crlf
mShowRegister ESI,ESI
mShowRegister EDI,EDI

mShowRegister EBP,EBP

mov eax,saveESP
mShowRegister ESP,EAX
call Crlf

mov eax,saveIP
mShowRegister EIP,EAX
mov eax,eflags
mShowRegister EFL,EAX

; Show the flags (using the eflags variable). The integer parameter indicates
; how many times EFLAGS must be shifted right to shift the selected flag
; into the Carry flag.

ShowFlag CF,1
ShowFlag SF,8
ShowFlag ZF,7
ShowFlag OF,12
ShowFlag AF,5
ShowFlag PF,3

call Crlf
call Crlf

popfd
pop eax
ret
DumpRegs ENDP


mShowRegister is a macro, which is located in a file, Macros.inc


;---------------------------------------------------
mShowRegister MACRO regName, regValue
LOCAL tempStr
;
; Displays a 32-bit register name and contents.
; Receives: the register name, the register value.
;---------------------------------------------------
.data
tempStr BYTE "  &regName=",0
.code
push eax

; Display the register name
push edx
mov edx,OFFSET tempStr
call WriteString
pop edx

; Display the register contents
mov eax,regValue
call WriteHex
pop eax
ENDM


All of Kip Irvine's source code examples and compiled libraries can be downloaded here:
Link Libraries and Example Programs (http://kipirvine.com/asm/examples/index.htm)

rrr314159  Certainly that I use macros :shock:
They make source small and nice readable.
Your idea about VS is inappropriate ;)

Quote from: Zen on June 16, 2015, 07:11:17 AMThey are not really compatible. Kip write overly simplistic code, and his examples are designed to be used only with other routines from the Irvine library

Compatibility is not a big problem. Most of his 32-bit examples work just fine when pasted into the template \Masm32\MasmBasic\IrvineMB\IrvineMasm32.asc - and you can add any Masm32 code, too.

JOCHEN,

Quote from: JOCHENCompatibility is not a big problem. Most of his 32-bit examples work just fine when pasted into the template.

Ha, Ha, Ha,...you know, I've been frequenting this Forum for years,...and I didn't know that,...I have to suspect that most novices aren't aware of it either.

habran,

thanks for the info. But I'm still thinking about that idea, here's another aspect of it. With VS u have a nice source debugger for regular asm and for C. But it doesn't help with compile-time macros does it? Such macros can get very complicated - good examples in qWord's stuff, in particular - and u have to debug them the old-fashioned way, put in print statements (or, echo statements) and so forth, right? So wouldn't u avoid really complex stuff like that in favor of C?

I'm not so much interested in your own technique - don't mean to get personal :biggrin: but instead, any normal VS programmer. Wouldn't they avoid such really complex stuff as, for instance, qWord's "RealMath"?

Reason I ask, as a "macro fan" I've not been interested in VS because of this idea. Wonder if I'm wrong? But it still makes sense to me, that in VS u would only use simple macros to, for instance, encapsulate a repeated block of code with one statement, not much more. Any further opinion welcome, thanks

RRR314158,
You know,...I think QWORD is the only person on the planet that can understand QWORD's macros.
It's amazing stuff,...really !!! I wonder,...do you think he dreams in macros ???

rrr314159,
VS doesn't assemble ASM source but the assembler you are using(masm,JWasm,yasm...)
it just serves as an IDE and a linker for compiled sources in to EXE
When you want to debug it you can set breakpoints in the .asm source by clicking on the frame on the left side of the row where you want like in C or C++
You can debug it in source mode or debug mode and you can switch from one to the other any moment
You never know if you never go ;)

One of the problems I have seen over a long period is that people who want to start programming in assembler by first setting up their own environment have a very high failure rate and it comes from trying to do things the old way. First they must configure an editor/IDE so it will build asm files then learn the bare minimum to build an object module which entails understanding an assembler, linker and resource compiler followed by having to try and write their own runtime library.

Collectively this is a near impossible task for a person starting out in assembler. Almost all of the older fellas can do all of this stuff but dumping this burden on a beginner is an act of stupidity as it almost always garrantees their failure. Assembler programming has nothing to do with elitism, it has always been a task of hard work and the most successful approach is to ease a learner into a successful path, not put obstacles in their path.

My disappointment with Kip Irvine's book is how badly it is supported and its lack of proper Intel ABI compliance. We regularly get people asking questions on how to build examples from the text book when it should be supported by the author or at least educational organisations that use it.

When I see a topic like "need help getting started" I see a person who does not know how to set up and configure a programming environment who expects other people to customise their often badly informed choices for them. Years ago you use to get "Why isn't it like a Borland IDE" then later it was "why isn't it like the VC/VS IDE" or "why isn't it like UltraEdit" and so on but it does reveal what the problem is, a lack of willingness to learn something new.

habran: You never know if you never go ;)

thanks now I understand how it works. I have installed VS a number of times over the years most recently when I came here a few months ago. Certainly a good product but I hate MS, when I discovered H/JWasm, evaluated it thoroughly and finally dumped ML I knew I'd found my niche. U know, I had to create an Outlook account just to try VS. Takes seconds to come up (qEditor takes milliseconds) ... I got a couple C++ examples working. 3 times they made me verify over the phone who I was, answer security questions, the third time I decided that was the end, never touched it again. It's not the product I hate, it's Microsoft.

hutch: Collectively this is a near impossible task for a person starting out in assembler

Maybe you're right, but it's hard to relate to your point of view. When I first ran into assembler, age 20-something, took maybe an afternoon to produce first program. Of course it was million times simpler back then, just thumbed in octal codes on the front panel, (later read them in from a tape, having thumbed in the tape driver), then put Instruction Counter at beginning and let 'er rip. If I'd had no experience b4 masm32 ... well it certainly would have been a lot harder I admit! But I still can't figure it's that big a deal; and I've taught plenty of math-illiterates topics such as math, physics, even programming (altho, never assembler). I think you'd find normal people are a lot smarter than u think if you can just get them to want to learn.

Having said that, emphasize again maybe you're right, you've had more experience with assembler beginners than me (not, however, with technical beginners in general)

rrr314159,
This world is composed of POSITIVE and NEGATIVE
NEGATIVE is there for development of our conscience
POSITIVE is there for our enjoyment
PREJUDICE makes us NEGATIVE ;)

Surely you're aware that pi is a POSITIVE number

3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751 ...

Quote from: habranPREJUDICE makes us NEGATIVE

- prejudice makes you people negative, perhaps :biggrin:

- all my judice is postjudice

Hmmm ... better explain that for u non-native speakers,

Pre - judice means, to judge (judice) before (pre) learning the facts

Post - judice means, to judge AFTER learning the facts

Quote from: ZenI wonder,...do you think he dreams in macros ???

- Many people have the same recurring dream again and again, like flying for instance, or perhaps a nightmare ... qWord doesn't bother to have the dream again and again, why waste the effort? he just puts it in a macro :biggrin:

Quote from: hutch-- on June 16, 2015, 11:14:32 AMOne of the problems I have seen over a long period is that people who want to start programming in assembler by first setting up their own environment have a very high failure rate

Yes indeed, and the blame is to be put entirely on the developers of "IDEs".

What it should do: IDE greets the user with an empty window, you type print "Hello World", you click on "Run", and you see Hello World in a console window.

What it does instead: You spend a whole day googling desperately how to "set up" the "environment". This is the worst case - Visual Crap.

qEditor (Masm32's default editor) is a lot better than that, but it could be improved. When you paste...
include \masm32\include\masm32rt.inc

.code
start:
print "Hello World"
exit

end start
... and click "Build all", you see a cryptic message "Cannot perform this operation. There is no file loaded to perform it on".

Now if the user has a lot of creative imagination, he might find out this means "qEditor won't build this unless you save this file first".
So he hits Ctrl S and saves it as "test". Ouch:
Microsoft (R) Macro Assembler Version 6.15.8803
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp 1981-2000.  All rights reserved.

Assembling: C:\Masm32\test.asm
MASM : fatal error A1000: cannot open file : C:\Masm32\test.asm
_
Assembly Error
Hit any key to continue. . .

After an hour of googling, trial and error and posting in the Masm32 forum, user finally finds out that qEditor doesn't automatically add the extension. So he saves again, this time as "test.asm", clicks "build all", and wow, this time the build succeeds!

But no Hello World on the screen. So user goes back studying the various options, and finally realises that making the program RUN is an extra item at the bottom of "Project".

So he clicks that and - nothing happens. Absolutely nothing.

When consulting the Masm32 forum, he gets three or four diverging opinions from jj and Dave, and finally finds out, after some days of trial and error, that
- every time he changes something, it must be saved (a warning "Build: Your changes have not been saved" would be most helpful)
- print "Hello World" needs Console build all (in hindsight, this should be the default)
- even if you do save your work, and you do use Console build all, and you do click Run again, you won't see your desperately awaited Hello World, because the editor doesn't keep the console window open.

So back to the Forum, "I see a very short flash but no Hello World". And somebody suggests to run the exe from a DOS prompt.

After a week or so, he has learned that inkey "Hello World" is the easiest way to see Hello World.

Now isn't that encouraging? And I stick to my opinion that VS is crap in comparison...

(btw if you paste the print hello world code above into RichMasm, and you click "Build and Run", you see Hello World; even if you didn't save it before, even if you don't know what console build is, even if you don't know the subtle difference between print and inkey... it simply does what the user expects).

 :biggrin:

JJ,

Its from a common language that we both shared, GFAbasic from long ago. I swore I would never use anything other than a pure ascii editor ever again. Now its true that QE does not hold your hand and that MASM32 was never aimed at bare beginners to programming and this accounts for its basic ascii editor characteristics, you must save a file to disk to assembler it and you must name a file with the correct extension to assemble it. The expectation for a person using QE in MASM32 is that they know what a console is and to see the results they need to understand how a console works. The "inkey" macro is there to pause the exit for that reason.

Now I understand why you build these characteristics into your MASMbasic editor as it is a dedicated tool for your build environment but QE is intentionally built as a pure ascii editor as it gets used for basic, HTML, text files and anything that needs plain ASCII text so the differences are design differences. MASM32 was never aimed at 1st language learners, it was aimed at programmers who already knew how to use a compiler , write Windows API code and had at least some grasp of assembler mnemonics. Without this background the task is nearly futile.

hutch: I swore I would never use anything other than a pure ascii editor ever again.

- agree 1000%

But jj2007 has a point, and it would be very easy to help a beginner as he suggests. One could add to the Script menu a selection "Create Hello World Example", which would create this program:

; Instructions:
; Save this program as test.asm using File menu: Save As
; Select Project menu: Console Build All
; Select Project menu: Run Program

include \masm32\include\masm32rt.inc

.code

start:

    printf ("Hello World\n")
    inkey "pause..."

ret

end start

or, something similar

rrr3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751
Don't keep a poison on your tongue, you could swallow it accidentally :biggrin:
How can you say Post - judice when you never built any assembly program in VS ::)   

Quote from: hutch-- on June 16, 2015, 02:11:01 PMNow I understand why you build these characteristics into your MASMbasic editor as it is a dedicated tool for your build environment

Guess what? RichMasm (http://masm32.com/board/index.php?topic=94.0) offers the same service to the 300+ sources in \Masm32\examples..!
- it autodetects if the source is console or GUI
- if it is a console application, it keeps the window open, so that the user can see the output
- it builds and runs with a single menu click or keystroke (btw is there ANYBODY here who builds code without running it??)
- just like Visual Crap, it builds and runs on the basis of the code you see, even if it hasn't been saved yet

But I agree, of course: noobs should suffer like C programmers do, so that only the best 1% survive as valid assembler programmers 8)

How can you say Post - judice when you never built any assembly program in VS

- I specifically said I've nothing against that program, seems like a good environment, slower than I like, hey nothing's perfect. Read what I wrote! I didn't criticize its assembler capability, because as u point out I didn't exercise it. That's why I was asking your opinion. Furthermore I believed your opinion, after asking enough q's to clarify - obviously u have the experience I don't.

I said "I hate Microsoft" - hate having to answer security questions on the phone 3 times in a month. I met Bill Gates when we were both in our 20's, have invested in the company and used its products for decades - that's post-judice. The b*****d stole a lot of money from people like me, not with better products but with lawyers and market manipulations. At least, that's my opinion: I don't claim it's definitely right, I could be wrong, but the judgment is made with plenty of experience and facts to back it up.

Postjudice does NOT = right! It only means one has the experience to justify an opinion, which of course might be wrong: no one is infallible, certainly not me.

Quote from: rrrCertainly a good product [referring to VS] but I hate MS

> But I agree, of course: noobs should suffer like C programmers do, so that only the best 1% survive as valid assembler programmers

If someone wants to cater for the "noob" market, then best of luck to them, long ago I learnt that unless a programmer has the basics of API code and at least some assembler, they almost exclusively fail. MASM32 is aimed at people who are far enough up the tree to see what can be done next. The old rule applies here, there is no point in trying to make anything idiot proof as there will always be a better idiot.

it takes a certain amount of persistance to get going
which, i find to be the dividing line that seperates real asm coders from everyone else
if you don't have enough drive to get past the opening problems, you probably won't like asm, anyways

the problem is, those that drop out tend to bad-mouth asm without ever really trying it - lol

Quote from: hutch-- on June 16, 2015, 02:11:01 PM
.. QE is intentionally built as a pure ascii editor as it gets used for basic, HTML, text files and anything that needs plain ASCII text so the differences are design differences.

Perhaps it's posible add sintax coloring without change the main characteristics. I find that option very useful in whatever programming language I use, along width the posibility of select font type. But font and size must be the same in all the source. I know that RichMasm have a lot of usefull characteristcs, but I can't even read a source code using it because excesive decoration is like "offensive". Of course is only one opinion (mostly from the noobs side).

Regards. HSE         

Quote from: jj2007if it is a console application, it keeps the window open, so that the user can see the output.
it builds and runs with a single menu click or keystroke

- notice that both features are achievable using the command window. Of course it stays open, and u can (and do) write a batch file to compile link run all at once. And then u can do other things, like redirect the output, compile and link multiple files (with appropriate batch file) etc. These are the reasons I do it that way. Of course cmd window makes it even less noob-friendly

Quote from: jj2007(btw is there ANYBODY here who builds code without running it??)

- maybe once in a thousand times? You're right there should be a single selection to do all

Quote from: jj2007But I agree, of course: noobs should suffer like C programmers do, so that only the best 1% survive as valid assembler programmers

- you're being ironic, but many people really do have that attitude. Not me; it's good to create a noob-friendly environment as you have; but dedndave's comment (below) is germane

Quote from: hutchIf someone wants to cater for the "noob" market, then best of luck to them

- can't argue with that! No reason you should have to do it

Quote from: dedndaveit takes a certain amount of persistance to get going which, i find to be the dividing line that seperates real asm coders from everyone else

- you're right, all programmers need that but asm in particular. A quote mis-attributed to Einstein: "genius is 1% inspiration 99% perspiration". Much truer of coding than "genius" whatever that is

Quote from: HSEPerhaps it's posible add sintax coloring without change the main characteristics

- I appreciate syntax coloring myself, have often found myself wishing I had it again (when using qEditor) but u can't do that with pure ascii editor. And, pure-ascii-ness is more important to me. Don't see any reasonable compromise ...

[edit] come to think of it, a pretty-print app, including syntax coloring, for masm32 code would be useful. Run independent of qEditor

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Looks like a Christmas tree ... but no doubt the coloring can be changed. What program is that?

Anyway, I figured one would use "rich" text for syntax coloring. So, I assume your example has tags embedded in the text like {color=red}..{/color} or whatever; that's not pure ascii.

For instance, if you were to copy and paste the above syntax-highlighted text into Notepad, would it have tags embedded? And, if you were to type tags like {color=red}..{/color} (or whatever) would they remain as is, or would they turn into two red-colored dots? If it behaves as "pure ascii" then I'm surprised, and would like to know what the program is

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Quote from: HSE on June 17, 2015, 12:53:44 AMI know that RichMasm have a lot of usefull characteristcs, but I can't even read a source code using it because excesive decoration is like "offensive".

RichMasm is a "pure Ascii" editor: Just load, for example, \Masm32\examples\exampl04\listview\listview.asm, press Ctrl A to select all, then Ctrl E twice. Every text will be black now. Go to Edit & Format then and select "Fixed font".

(and delete the first line, saying OPT_Res 0 etc - listview.asm does indeed need its rsrc.rc; this is an incorrect assumption of RichMasm that will be fixed in the next edition :redface:)

Quote from: rrr314159 on June 17, 2015, 04:15:29 AM
I figured one would use "rich" text for syntax coloring.

I don't know how editors do that, but its plain text. It's not really "sintax coloring" but "words and symbols coloring". The editor asociate several list of words or symbols width colors (one color for each list), and asociate that configuration width the extention of the file. So its posible to use various "syntax" at the same time (one for each file extention).

JJ:

Thanks a lot. Now is posible to read. I try to find the way a year ago, and never try again. Perhaps in your system the rich text look wondefull, but in my monitor look very crazy, at list for me (I am accustomed to write with mostly gray letters on black backgrounds, and the change of font size is nerve-racking)

HSE

Quote from: HSEsintax coloring

- sin tax coloring: they represent liquor tax as "red", drug paraphernalia tax "green", sex trade tax "blue" ... so office workers can color-code files and forms ... ?

Quote from: HSEI don't know how editors do that, but its plain text.... The editor asociate several list of words or symbols width colors (one color for each list), and asociate that configuration width the extention of the file.

- how they do that: in the old days they (as I said) used tags like {color=red}...{/color}. Internally the plain text is "marked up" (that's where the term "mark-up language comes from; e.g. HTML = HyperText Mark-up Language) with these tags. Then when it's presented to you the window software reads the tags and colors things appropriately. (Mark-up is also used for bold, italic, fonts etc). To you it looks like "plain text" but it's not, and when you try to use it directly (with copy and paste, or reading the file with notepad) you'll see these mark-up tags.

- And they probably do it that way today also! For instance that's how RichMasm works, using a RichEdit control. Not surprising that u don't know that, as a beginner, but nidud should. :eusa_snooty:

Quote from: rrr314159 on June 17, 2015, 10:25:37 AMin the old days they (as I said) used tags like {color=red}...{/color}. Internally the plain text is "marked up" (that's where the term "mark-up language comes from; e.g. HTML = HyperText Mark-up Language) with these tags. Then when it's presented to you the window software reads the tags and colors things appropriately. (Mark-up is also used for bold, italic, fonts etc). To you it looks like "plain text" but it's not, and when you try to use it directly (with copy and paste, or reading the file with notepad) you'll see these mark-up tags.

Actually, the RichEdit control exports both plain text and formatted text to the clipboard. When pasting to Notepad, you'll see plain text, while pasting in Word produces formatted text.

Excel and Thunderbird, on the other hand, paste plain text, in spite of their capacity to work with rich text. RichMasm has a special "copy as html" option for this case (under Edit & Format).

Syntax colouring in a rich edit control is no big deal as long as you avoid crap like RTF notation and the colouring system it natively supports. A rich edit control is genuinely fast if you restrict it to pure ASCII text and if you desperately want technicolor, look up the system that Iczelion designed before the year 2000, it is far faster and no big deal to code. I did a version of QE 15 years ago with syntax colouring and it worked fine, it was just that I hated it and it slowed down the speed that I read code so I never put it into production.

Would have to study it more but think you're underplaying it. When exporting to NotePad, when u save it says "the text has special characters if u save it they will be lost" (words to that effect). That's not so bad, but then, every time u save thereafter, it will say it again! PITA. Main problem: if u read the .rtf doc in assembler, with FileOpen (I sometimes massage or create code files in assembler) it's got special chars in it, not what I want at all. Yes you can tell it to save or export in plain text, but u have to tell it every time.

Admittedly not sure about all this, I know above behavior happens with this type of thing, but since I avoid rtf can't be certain of details. But read syntax-colored code into assembler (rtf, or whatever), (saved in ordinary way) it doesn't come in as straight ascii, with no coloring tags or anything - does it? If it does, then I'm wrong

Just read Iczelion's example.

2 much trouble

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 :biggrin:

> 2 much trouble

I imagine Iczelion would be too complicated for many. None the less his technique was reliable and fast, far faster than the trash around at the time.

Strangely enough, when pasted in qEditor, you can see the Russian text:

include \masm32\MasmBasic\Res\MbGui.asm
Event Paint
  GuiText 9, 9, "Добро пожаловать"
GuiEnd

But building that successfully is reserved for a true RichEdit control. While I am not strictly against automatic syntax highlighting (GfaBasic & OllyDbg both have it), I find sparingly used very specific manual highlighting more interesting. Example:

      push edi
      .Repeat
  @@:       lodsb
            cmp al, jdot
            jne @F
            cmp byte ptr [esi], "B"
            jne @F
            inc esi                  ; correct source pos: +2
            inc esi
            jmp @B
  AddLF:    sub al, 3            ; 13-3=10, LF
            .if dword ptr [esi]=="cu$;"      ;$uc      flag uncomment this line
                  add esi, 4
            .endif
  @@:       stosb
            cmp al, 13            ; GetCurSel text does not contain LF...
            je AddLF
      .Until !al
      .Repeat
            dec edi
            mov dl, [edi]
      .Until dl!=59 && dl>32
      mov [edi+1], al            ; set delimiter on last whitespace or comment
      pop edi

If I see this sequence years after I've coded it, I might still be able to understand it, thanks to the colouring (this source has over 16,000 lines; it builds in less than a second, loads in less than half a second, and saves in 55ms).

nidud and hutch, it's extremely 2 much trouble to argue about it!