[Nasm-users] Re: [Nasm-bugs] resb and resd in .text section

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

mathi maaran wrote:

> hi everyone ,
>  
>          I am working with win32 asm programs(gui)
> i create PE executables with nasm alone (without a linker);
> i.e  the -fbin option .
> i got a include file pemac.inc and it works well

[disclaimer]
The Nasm development team is not responsible for the contents of any 
include files you may be using. If you discover a problem with anything 
in the "misc" directory, we'll try to fix it, but there are a *lot* of 
include files floating around, and they're not all "right"...
[/disclaimer]

> but when i use resb or resd nasm gives a warning about the use of these 
> commands
> in the program
> i don't know whether it is a bug.

Nasm will warn if "res?" is used in a non-.bss section. "times" should 
be used instead, but Nasm'll just zero it, so it does no harm. Doesn't 
give you a .bss section, but it should still work.

> even though i name the code section with diff names nasm always refers 
> to it as .text section.

That suggests that your intended section name is being ignored (Nasm 
defaults to ".text"). "pemac.inc" redefines things all over the place, 
but it looks to me like it wants "BSS" - uppercase and no dot - in order 
to generate a ".bss" (case insensitive) section.

> i use 0.98.32

That could be a problem right there. Some "multisection support" was 
added in 0.98.08. A bug involving "align" was found, and in the course 
of fixing it, some "ill advised" (according to some) features were 
found. In 0.98.36, a *completely* re-done "multisection support" was 
added (much more powerful and flexible, IMO). If you stick to the 
"known" section-names, ".text", ".data", and ".bss", you won't notice 
any difference, but "homemade" section names behave slightly 
differently. I don't know if it'll help, but I'd advise updating (to 
0.98.38 - 0.98.37 is buggy as hell... mostly in the "-f elf" format, 
but...).

> please clear my doubt

Well, not at first shot, I'm afraid... I'll look into it more, and I'll 
cc this reply to the "nasm-users" list. NuMIT-or hangs out there, and 
can probably pinpoint your problem instantly.

By coincidence, I just tried my first example using "pemac.inc" - 
actually, I modified "pemac.inc", so I *know* there exist modified 
versions :) There's a "bug" (IMO) in the dos stub (doesn't set ds), but 
I modified it to use a "special" stub - the program in question was 
NuMIT-or's "shutdown" example, and I didn't figure "this program 
requires windows" was really true, just to shut down (I modified the 
original program to "reboot" rather than "shutdown", too). So now it 
works from dos, too! (if anyone cares...) This program doesn't have a 
.bss section, so I don't have an example of how that's supposed to be 
done :(

I don't think this is a Nasm bug, so further discussion should maybe go 
to another list - the SourceFrog "nasm-users" list or the Yahoo 
"win32-nasm-users" list would probably be most appropriate. We *may* 
need you to "post the code", and/or indicate the date and file-size of 
the "pemac.inc" you're using (my modification may not be the only one 
out there :)

I'll cc this to the Yahoo list, too - that being the most popular one. 
Please drop the nasm-bugs list from any replies - I really don't think 
it's a Nasm problem...

Best,
Frank