Considering Assembly

[chriisb]

I was considering trying to learn assembly, but I was not really sure if it would be feasible to be able to step try to edit an .exe. I made a simple program in Visual Basic to test, and when I disassembled it, it was 29 pages long. Is there a way to step through the compiled program while looking at the assembly code, or do you have to try to go through all the code?

 

[SiaMeX]

try using debugger.

 

[oleksii]

1st point - VB proggy does not seem a good target. older versions (i mean 3, 4) only loaded vbrunXX.dll and passed control to it for the purpose of interpertation of VB tokens. later versions, as far as i know, generate pseudocode for MS virtual machine and i wonder, if VB can generate a genuine intel code at all (will appreciate a hint from VB ppl ). so most likely ur 29 page listing had no touch to the code u have created.

2nd - if u want to grasp what an exe looks like - use disassembler (not debugger). the best is IDA (interactive disassembler). There is a free demo on their site, its quite enough to get a flavor of disassembling. for serious stuff u will need a full version, sure. buy it if u can afford (its among few proggies worth buying!) or try to fetch it from the net. btw, since version 4.5 it has also win32 debugger.

good luck with assembly!

 

[straiph]

3gl to 1gl is big mistake - i wouldnt bother because higher generation languages produce more redundant code (infact masses of unused libraries etc)

you can chose a 1gl like assembly - technical but thin is size and fast!!!!

or you can choose a 3gl like VB or C++ - not very technical (ie a monkey can program) and fat in size and slow as a snail in comparison!!!

if you try and use debugger on a VB program you will experience pages upon pages of code that your program wont even use. same with C++

hmm, do i sound biased? oh well, never mind, just go and upgrade your RAM and HD again!


"There are 10 types of people in this world, those who know binary and those who don't!"

 

[lionelhill]

I agree that looking at someone else's code is a good way to learn. Rather than looking at someone else's exe, though, it might be a good idea to look at some simple assembler programs (hello world, etc). See any good textbook, or if you got a decent copy of an assembler, probably examples supplied on the disk.

Straiph, too true, too true. When 'hello world' goes over 1Mbyte the world has something seriously wrong with it.

 

[OSProgrammer]

Hello!

When You Make an EXE File Under Windows Programmings Like Delphi Or Visual Basic, The Files At Least Become 500KB. So If You Disassemble It, You Will See Thousands Of Assembly Code Lines. Because They Have a Lot Of Instructions.
But If You Make a BIG Program With Assembly Under Real Mode, It Will Become At Most 100KB.

For Learning Assembly =>

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/3230/x86asm/asmles01.html

Best Regards...
OSProgrammer

 

[chriisb]

Thanks a lot for all the advice! I'm going to see what I can do.