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Macros

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23 views

Macros

Uploaded by

pancrace tardis
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Macros

Macros are just like procedures, but not really. Macros look like
procedures, but they exist only until your code is compiled, after
compilation all macros are replaced with real instructions. If you
declared a macro and never used it in your code, compiler will
simply ignore it. emu8086.inc is a good example of how macros
can be used, this file contains several macros to make coding
easier for you.

Macro definition:
name MACRO
[parameters,...]

<instructions>

ENDM

Unlike procedures, macros should be defined above the code that


uses it, for example:

MyMacro MACRO p1,


p2, p3

MOV AX, p1
MOV BX, p2
MOV CX, p3

ENDM

ORG 100h

MyMacro 1, 2, 3

MyMacro 4, 5, DX

RET

The above code is expanded into:


MOV AX, 00001h
MOV BX, 00002h
MOV CX, 00003h
MOV AX, 00004h
MOV BX, 00005h
MOV CX, DX
Some important facts about macros and procedures:

 When you want to use a procedure you should use CALL instruction,
for example:

CALL MyProc

 When you want to use a macro, you can just type its name. For
example:

MyMacro

 Procedure is located at some specific address in memory, and if you


use the same procedure 100 times, the CPU will transfer control to
this part of the memory. The control will be returned back to the
program by RET instruction. The stack is used to keep the return
address. The CALL instruction takes about 3 bytes, so the size of the
output executable file grows very insignificantly, no matter how
many time the procedure is used.

 Macro is expanded directly in program's code. So if you use the same


macro 100 times, the compiler expands the macro 100 times, making
the output executable file larger and larger, each time all instructions
of a macro are inserted.

 You should use stack or any general purpose registers to pass


parameters to procedure.

 To pass parameters to macro, you can just type them after the macro
name. For example:

MyMacro 1, 2, 3

 To mark the end of the macro ENDM directive is enough.

 To mark the end of the procedure, you should type the name of the
procedure before the ENDP directive.

Macros are expanded directly in code, therefore if there are labels


inside the macro definition you may get "Duplicate declaration"
error when macro is used for twice or more. To avoid such
problem, use LOCAL directive followed by names of variables,
labels or procedure names. For example:

MyMacro2 MACRO
LOCAL label1, label2

CMP AX, 2
JE label1
CMP AX, 3
JE label2
label1:
INC AX
label2:
ADD AX, 2
ENDM

ORG 100h

MyMacro2

MyMacro2

RET

If you plan to use your macros in several programs, it may be a


good idea to place all macros in a separate file. Place that file in
Inc folder and use INCLUDE file-name directive to use macros.

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