[Nasm-users] call HLA library from Nasm code?

[Frank K. <fbk...@co...>]

Randy Hyde has posted the following on alt.lang.asm...

-------------------------------------
Odyssey, over at the Win32 ASM Community Board, has
created an include file for FASM users that allows them to
call many of the routines in the HLA Standard Library. I've
posted an early version of this header file on Webster at
http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/Page_AdvAsm/0_HLA4FASM.html
FASM users might want to check this out.

Those interested in helping out with this project might want to
check out
http://board.win32asmcommunity.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16040

It might also be a bit of a help to NASM users if someone were to do
the same thing for NASM (I'd do it, but I'm a bit snowed under right
now). Between the MASM and FASM header, skeleton, and demo
files, it should be pretty obvious to any NASM programmer what needs
to be done.

For any FASM users looking for a project, the header file above is
for Windows; a Linux version would be cool to have, too (then FASM
users could more easily port programs between Windows and Linux,
just like HLA).
Cheers,
Randy Hyde
--------------------------------------

Now... I did a similar thing a while ago - ported the include files so 
we could call the old 16-bit UCR Standard Library from Nasm code... 
There appeared to be *zero* interest in such a thing. Still, include 
files for Nasm so we could call the HLA library might be a handy thing 
to have...

The problem is that the Fasm files use a lot of "if used" constructs, like:

      macro EXTRN symbol,name
      { if used symbol
	  if name eq
	     extrn symbol
	  else
	     extrn name as symbol
	  end if
        end if }

or:

if used AbortDoc
extrn '__imp__AbortDoc@4' as AbortDoc:dword
end if


... and I'm not sure how to do that in Nasm. "%ifid" seems not to do the 
trick. If we declare everything extern, whether it's used or not, it'll 
work, but results in a bloated executable. Anyone know how to do "if 
used" in Nasm?

Best,
Frank