Stack

The stack is like a data structure with the two methods push and pop. We have been using those instructions as well as pusha and popa (which push the values of EAX, EBX, ECX, EDX, ESI, EDI and EBP in a different order) throughout the tutorial. Those instructions push a dword or 4 bytes into the stack and pop them respectively.

RAM Layout

The following table shows a sample graphical layout of the Stack and other data on RAM starting from bottom up, meaning the address 0 being at the bottom of the table.

Prologue & Epilogue

The enter and leave semi-instructions are called the prologue and epilogue of a function respectively. Those instructions enter and leave a new stack frame. The Prologue pushes EBP and saves the current stack pointer (ESP) in EBP while the epilogue does the exact opposite. So in a pseudocode, those semi-instructions look like the following:

enter x, 0:
    push    ebp
    mov     ebp, esp
    sub     esp, x      ; add x bytes to the stack
    ret

leave:
    mov     esp, ebp
    pop     ebp
    ret

Local Data

As seen in the previous parts, enter x, 0 adds x elements to the stack. These reserved (or manually added) fields now can be used as storage for local data.

pow:    ; function pow(x, n) = x^n
; init
    enter   0, 0
    mov     edx, [esp + 4]  ; EDX = x
    mov     ecx, [esp + 8]  ; ECX = n, counter

; body
    TEST    ecx, ecx        ; if n = 0 -> zero
    JZ      zero
    mov     eax, 1          ; eax = multiplicative one

pow_loop:
    imul    eax, edx        ; EDX:EAX = EAX * EDX
    loop    pow_loop
    JMP     return

 zero:  ; x^0 = 1
    mov     eax, 1
    JMP     return

; end
return:
    leave
    ret

This pow function does not require any local variables to be defined as everything can be calculated within the registers directly with no need for an additional memory. In the following code, you will see the importance of local variables however:

polynom:        ; function polynom(x, c)
                ; calcs the result for: (x%c) * (x^c + x^(c-1) + ... + x)
; init
    enter 0, 0
    push    ebx
    xor     ebx, ebx        ; EBX = additive zero, result store
    mov     edx, [esp + 4]  ; x
    mov     ecx, [esp + 8]  ; c ( and counter)

; def locals
    push    ecx
    push    edx
    call    modulo      ; assuming one of the known 
                        ; modulo functions were implemented

; manage locals
    add     esp, 8          ; remove the two off the stack
                            ; not necessary, though
    sub     esp, 4          ; add an element
    ; in practice, use 'add esp, 4' instead of two steps

; init local var
    mov     dword [esp + 4], eax    ; save x%c as local variable

; body
poly_loop:
    push    ecx
    push    edx
    call    pow                 ; x^(ecx) -> eax
    imul    eax, [esp + 4]      ; edx:eax = eax * (x%c)
    add     ebx, eax            ; ebx = ebx + eax
    loop    poly_loop

; end
    mov     eax, ebx        ; write result on eax
    pop     ebx
    leave
    ret

Nesting

In programming, you will most likely have several blocks and have to store nested data. Sometimes there might be blocks in blocks and you might not want the blocks outside of the entered block (stack frame) to be able to access data from within the new block. This phenomenon is achieved by giving a specific nesting level as argument to the enter instruction.

In general, the enter x, y instruction consists of two parts. x for the amount of dynamic data storage to be reserved and y for the nesting level. See the following codes:

int function(void){
    int a = 0;
    if (a == 0){
        int b = 7;
        // do something
    }
    return 0;

That function could be written as in following in ASM:

function:
    enter 1, 0
    mov [esp + 4], 0
    CMP [esp + 4], 0
    JNE func_return

func_if_true:
    enter 1, 1
    mov [esp + 4], 7
    ; do something (we can access 'a' too here)
    leave
    JMP func_return

func_return:
    mov eax, 0
    leave
    ret

Peeking

There is no instruction for looking into the content of the stack without pop, but it may be implemented by the following peek function:

peek.asm

segment .data
    buffer dd 0xFFFFFFFF    ; saving a value in memory
; saving in memory makes sure to keep a value saved even after pop operations on reg

segment .text
global peek
global pushpeek

; size_t peek(size_t i, ...)
; reads i-th element on stack and returns
; caution: i = 0 -> return address
; i = 1 -> i
; i = n + 1 -> n-th argument passed to peek
peek:
; init
    enter 0, 0

 ; body
    mov     edx, [esp + 4]  ; the passed arg: peek the i-th element on stack
    mov     eax, [esp + 4 * edx]

 ; end
    leave
    ret

; size_t pushpeek(void)
; pushes 0 and returns the pushed value
pushpeek:
; init
    enter 0, 0
    pusha

; body
    xor     eax, eax    ; eax = 0
    push    eax
    push    dword 0x2   ; set which element to peek
    call    peek
    add     esp, 8      ; delete the two pushed dwords
    mov     ebp, buffer
    mov     [ebp], eax    

; end
    popa
    mov     eax, [buffer]
    leave
    ret

©2019 C & NASM Tutorials by M. Kasim Doenmez