BorlandTalk.com Borland discussion newsgroups   Archives   FAQ   Search   Memberlist   Usergroups   Register   Profile   Log in to check your private messages   Log in  Delphi based Assembler?          BorlandTalk.com Forum Index -> Delphi Language BASM View previous topic :: View next topic   Author Message Nicholas Sherlock Guest Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 2:32 am    Post subject: Delphi based Assembler? Hey all, I want my Superoptimizer to be able to assemble the valid candidate functions that it creates so that it can benchmark them to decide which candidates are the best. Would I be better off writing a small assembler myself for this problem, or is there a Delphi based assembler already available? Calling an external application will be *way* too slow. Cheers, Nicholas Sherlock Back to top Per Larsen Guest Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 11:45 am    Post subject: Re: Delphi based Assembler? By 'an assembler' I assume you mean code that transforms text containing instruction mnemonics with arguments into binary code? I'm not aware of any for use within Delphi apps, but that doesn't mean there isn't anything out there. I'm curious why you would need that, though. Isn't it just a matter of writing a small string of (more or less random)bytes into a chunk of memory, then executing it via a proc ptr within a try...except frame, or something, to see it if produces the desired result? - Per Back to top Avatar Zondertau Guest Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 11:54 am    Post subject: Re: Delphi based Assembler? Quote: By 'an assembler' I assume you mean code that transforms text containing instruction mnemonics with arguments into binary code? I'm not aware of any for use within Delphi apps, but that doesn't mean there isn't anything out there. I'm curious why you would need that, though. Isn't it just a matter of writing a small string of (more or less random)bytes into a chunk of memory, then executing it via a proc ptr within a try...except frame, or something, to see it if produces the desired result? This is not a useful approach. Not only does it vastly increase the search space, but it is also dangerous. A try..except construct cannot catch everything, and certain code constructs might be dangerous. -- The Fastcode Project: http://www.fastcodeproject.org/ Back to top Avatar Zondertau Guest Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 12:02 pm    Post subject: Re: Delphi based Assembler? Quote: I want my Superoptimizer to be able to assemble the valid candidate functions that it creates so that it can benchmark them to decide which candidates are the best. Would I be better off writing a small assembler myself for this problem, or is there a Delphi based assembler already available? Calling an external application will be way too slow. I am not aware of Delphi components which do this and finding them on Google seems difficult (no way to get around the many pages about inline asm programming in Delphi). However this shouldn't be hard to make. I assume your program already has some internal representation of the assembly, so parsing will not be needed. This means you'll only have to be able to translate a few opcodes and the ModR/M byte. There is a link to the relevant Intel documents on the FastCode page (for which there is a link in my sig below). This document: IA-32 Intel Architecture Software Developer's Manual Volume 2: Instruction Set Reference shows you how machine code works and lists the opcodes. It should be easy to create an assembler from this, especially if parsing is not needed. -- The Fastcode Project: http://www.fastcodeproject.org/ Back to top Adem Guest Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 1:34 pm    Post subject: Re: Delphi based Assembler? Let me get this out straight: I have no idea what you're trying to do. It is well beyond me; though/hence it does sound very impressive to me :-) Encouraged/armed with that ignorance, I was wondering if you couldn't tweak, say, FASM to do those optimizations. http://flatassembler.net/docs.php?article=design If, at the end, FASM's output is some form of .obj file that I can use in my app without worrying about the DLL hell, it is fine with me. I mean, for most people, reading stuff written asm is as good as reading object code, so while I would like the asm sources be available, I wouldn't really care if it were Delphi that compiled it or something else --that is, as long as I can use it in Delphi (or, FreePascal) in .obj form. FASM seems to be a good tool, IMVVHO, because it unlike (or, is it?) Delphi's it is good for both x86-32 and x86-64 which means foreseable future would be covered. Cheers, Adem Back to top Per Larsen Guest Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 2:43 pm    Post subject: Re: Delphi based Assembler? "Avatar Zondertau" <avatarzt (AT) gmail (DOT) com (please reply to newsgroup)> wrote in message news:43dcadf7$1 (AT) newsgroups (DOT) borland.com... Quote: This is not a useful approach. Not only does it vastly increase the search space, but it is also dangerous. A try..except construct cannot catch everything, and certain code constructs might be dangerous. I wasn't really imagining that he used random bytes - rather, just a table of the byte sequences that are known to map to simple instructions (no memory access, calls, jumps, and so on). - Per Back to top Mattias Andersson Guest Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 8:56 pm    Post subject: Re: Delphi based Assembler? Nicholas Sherlock wrote: Quote: I want my Superoptimizer to be able to assemble the valid candidate functions that it creates so that it can benchmark them to decide which candidates are the best. Would I be better off writing a small assembler myself for this problem, or is there a Delphi based assembler already available? Calling an external application will be *way* too slow. This sounds like a very interesting project. Are you using some kind of genetic algorithm for this (i.e. survival of the fittest)? Maybe you could use the X86 code generator in Inno Pascal ([url]http://other.jrsoftware.org/ip)[/url]. However, I think you would probably need to extend it. Cheers, Mattias Back to top Nicholas Sherlock Guest Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 10:40 pm    Post subject: Re: Delphi based Assembler? Avatar Zondertau wrote: Quote: I want my Superoptimizer to be able to assemble the valid candidate functions that it creates so that it can benchmark them to decide which candidates are the best. [...] this shouldn't be hard to make. I assume your program already has some internal representation of the assembly, so parsing will not be needed. This means you'll only have to be able to translate a few opcodes and the ModR/M byte. Yes, this sounds like a good solution. Thanks! Cheers, Nicholas Sherlock Back to top Nicholas Sherlock Guest Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 10:43 pm    Post subject: Re: Delphi based Assembler? Mattias Andersson wrote: Quote: Nicholas Sherlock wrote: I want my Superoptimizer to be able to assemble the valid candidate functions that it creates so that it can benchmark them to decide which candidates are the best. Would I be better off writing a small assembler myself for this problem, or is there a Delphi based assembler already available? Calling an external application will be *way* too slow. This sounds like a very interesting project. Are you using some kind of genetic algorithm for this (i.e. survival of the fittest)? Maybe you could use the X86 code generator in Inno Pascal ([url]http://other.jrsoftware.org/ip)[/url]. However, I think you would probably need to extend it. No, the Superoptimizer is simply brute force code generation - try every sensible combination of instructions and see if they work. I can't think that a genetic algorithm would work because there are no half measures when it comes to code - either it works or it doesn't. AFAICS, it'd therefore be impossible to have a "fitness" metric to choose your candidates by. Cheers, Nicholas Sherlock Back to top Mattias Andersson Guest Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2006 12:39 am    Post subject: Re: Delphi based Assembler? Nicholas Sherlock wrote: Quote: Mattias Andersson wrote: Nicholas Sherlock wrote: This sounds like a very interesting project. Are you using some kind of genetic algorithm for this (i.e. survival of the fittest)? No, the Superoptimizer is simply brute force code generation - try every sensible combination of instructions and see if they work. I can't think that a genetic algorithm would work because there are no half measures when it comes to code - either it works or it doesn't. AFAICS, it'd therefore be impossible to have a "fitness" metric to choose your candidates by. What I meant was that you could use the benchmark results as a fitness metric (for these instruction sequences that actually work). Mattias Back to top Eric Grange Guest Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2006 8:27 am    Post subject: Re: Delphi based Assembler? Re-posted egASM.zip to the attachments, it includes source and within X86ASM.pas you'll find a basic assembler. Been using it to assemble SIMD opcodes for older Delphi versions and a FPU compiler experiment. Doesn't support all instructions - only those I ever needed - but can be reasonnably easily extended ("reasonnably" means "assuming you already understand modRM and SIB stuff" ^_^) Eric Quote: Hey all, I want my Superoptimizer to be able to assemble the valid candidate functions that it creates so that it can benchmark them to decide which candidates are the best. Would I be better off writing a small assembler myself for this problem, or is there a Delphi based assembler already available? Calling an external application will be *way* too slow. Cheers, Nicholas Sherlock Back to top Simon Kissel Guest Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 5:55 pm    Post subject: Re: Delphi based Assembler? Quote: Would I be better off writing a small assembler myself for this problem, or is there a Delphi based assembler already available? Calling an external application will be *way* too slow. http://bero.0ok.de/page/index.php?p=27 is written in Delphi. I'll page the author and point him to this thread. Simon Back to top Nicholas Sherlock Guest Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 12:23 am    Post subject: Re: Delphi based Assembler? Eric Grange wrote: Quote: Re-posted egASM.zip to the attachments, it includes source and within X86ASM.pas you'll find a basic assembler. Been using it to assemble SIMD opcodes for older Delphi versions and a FPU compiler experiment. Doesn't support all instructions - only those I ever needed - but can be reasonnably easily extended ("reasonnably" means "assuming you already understand modRM and SIB stuff" ^_^) Thanks all, I've decided to close my eyes tightly when third-party assemblers float by, and code it myself from scratch, I think it'll be more fun that way . Cheers, Nicholas Sherlock Back to top Benjamin Rosseaux Guest Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 10:16 am    Post subject: Re: Delphi based Assembler? If you want use my T0A ( http://bero.0ok.de/page/index.php?p=27 ) , write me a mail. Nicholas Sherlock schrieb: Quote: Eric Grange wrote: Re-posted egASM.zip to the attachments, it includes source and within X86ASM.pas you'll find a basic assembler. Been using it to assemble SIMD opcodes for older Delphi versions and a FPU compiler experiment. Doesn't support all instructions - only those I ever needed - but can be reasonnably easily extended ("reasonnably" means "assuming you already understand modRM and SIB stuff" ^_^) Thanks all, I've decided to close my eyes tightly when third-party assemblers float by, and code it myself from scratch, I think it'll be more fun that way . 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