GSL in assembler

Hello,

I am mostly programming in Masm on Windows, and stumbled over gsl a while ago.
Fantastic work! So I decided to make it more accessible in assembler, and
wrote some macros.

Here is a demo how to use the macro with Microsoft Masm or
JWasm, taken 1:1 from the gsl example
program:

include \masm32\MasmBasic\MasmBasic.inc ;
download

; libgsl.dll download (gnuwin32.sourceforge.net) :
open Binaries zip, and extract

; libgsl.dll and libgslcblas.dll to \masm32\MasmBasic\GnuScLib\DLL

; define the gsl function(s) you need using the syntax of the GNU Scientific
Library Reference

gsl double gsl_sf_bessel_J0 (double x)
.data
x REAL8 5.0 ; in C, this would be double x = 5.0;

Init*
*gsl_INIT

gsl_sf_bessel_J0(x)

PrintLine "GNU expected:", Tb$, "-0.1775967713143382920"

PrintLine "On FPU: ", Tb$, "-0.1775967713143383198"

Inkey Str$("MB Str$() \t%If", ST(0))

gsl_EXIT
Exit****
end start

I don't understand why GSL users would want to write code in MASM or Nasm
assembler language except maybe for industrial applications. I would say that
for most "open source" developers Nasm is preferred over MASM; for example
OpenSSL no longer supports MSVC/C++ building with MASM with the latest version
1.0.0g.

See it the other way round: Why should a Masm coder want to use the GSL
library? Simply because occasionally you may need some math functions.
Besides, while the code below is assembler (i.e. ML.EXE recognises it as valid
code and assembles it...), it undeniably bears some resemblence to, well,
BASIC ;-)

include \masm32\MasmBasic\MasmBasic.inc ;
download

; libgsl.dll download (gnuwin32.sourceforge.net) :
open Binaries zip, and extract the two files

; libgsl.dll and libgslcblas.dll to \masm32\MasmBasic\GnuScLib\DLL

; define your required gsl function(s) using the syntax of the GNU Scientific
Library Reference

gsl double gsl_stats_mean (const double data, size_t stride, size_t n) ;
stride in doubles

gsl double gsl_stats_variance (const double data, size_t stride, size_t n)

gsl double gsl_stats_sd (const double data, size_t stride, size_t n)

gsl double gsl_stats_skew (const double data, size_t stride, size_t n)

gsl double gsl_sf_bessel_J0 (double x) ; double x means a pointer to a REAL8
is required

** Init
gsl_INIT

** ; Kill "MyDoubles.dat" ; activate if you want to create a new file with every run
.if !Exist("MyDoubles.dat") ; generate a new data file in
\Masm32\MasmBasic\GnuScLib\DLL

NumDoubles=1000000 ; one Million items - should take a while...

Rand() ; optional: set a seed using rdtsc

Dim MyDoubles(NumDoubles-1) As REAL8

For_ ebx=0 To NumDoubles-1

Rand(0, 200, MyDoubles(ebx)) ; create a double between 0 (inclusive) and 200
(exclusive)

Next

; for numeric arrays, Recall and Store need the #x syntax, i.e. Store
"myfile.dat", MyDoubles() is not possible

Open "O", #1, "MyDoubles.dat" ; write the NumDoubles items to file

Store #1, MyDoubles()

Close #1

Erase MyDoubles() ; this array no longer needed

PrintLine "New dataset created in ", CurDir$(0), CrLf$

.endif

Open "I", #1, "MyDoubles.dat"

mov ebx, Lof(#1) ; we need the size in a permanent register

sar ebx, 3 ; divide size by 8

PrintLine "Analysing ", CurDir$(), Str$("MyDoubles.dat with %i entries", ebx)

Dim MyDoubles2(ebx) As REAL8 ; read an array of doubles from file

Recall #1, MyDoubles2()

Close #1

lea ecx, MyDoubles2(0) ; get pointer to start of data

gsl_stats_mean(ecx, 1, ebx) ; stride 1 double, NumDoubles items

Print Str$("\nstats_mean= \t %5f", ST(0)) ; show as float, 5 digits precision

fstp st ; clean up the FPU - gsl uses many, sometimes all 8 FPU registers

gsl_stats_variance(ecx, 1, ebx) ; stride 1 double, NumDoubles items

Print Str$("\ns_variance= \t %5f", ST(0)) ; show as float, 5 digits precision

fstp st

gsl_stats_sd(ecx, 1, ebx) ; stride 1 double, NumDoubles items

Print Str$("\nstat_stdev= \t %3f", ST(0)) ; show as float, 3 digits precision

fstp st

gsl_stats_skew(ecx, 1, ebx) ; stride 1 double, NumDoubles items

Print Str$("\nstat_skew= \t %2f", ST(0)) ; show as float, 2 digits precision

fstp st

gsl_EXIT
Exit
end start