[TUHS] Query on PDP-11 assembly

[milov@uwlax.edu (Milo Velimirovic)]

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A subprogram using this calling convention would look something like  
this:

questf:	mov (r5)+,r0
	/ play with string pointed to by r0.
	rts r5

On Apr 30, 2008, at 8:55 AM, Brantley Coile wrote:

> In your example, -(sp) = r5; r5 = pc; pc = guestf.
> Guestf will have to bump r5 as in consumes the parameters.
> Rts r5 means pc = r5; r5 = (sp)+.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Warren Toomey wrote:
>> All, I'm trying to write a PDP-11 disassembler for a.out files. I'm  
>> having
>> trouble dealing with jsrs. Take, for example, the code here:
>> http://minnie.tuhs.org/UnixTree/1972_stuff/s1/frag19.html
>>
>> I can happily deal with the   jsr pc,do   type of jsr, but the ones
>> involving r5 have me stumped, e.g.:
>>
>> 	jsr	r5,questf; < nonexistent\n\0>; .even
>>
>> It appears that data is being inserted into the executable directly
>> after the jsr instruction. How does the rts which returns from the  
>> jsr
>> know how much data to skip, and what is the involvement of r5 here?

The rts doesn't know anything about how much data to skip. In this  
snippet r5 is a linkage register that's doing double duty: it's both  
an argument pointer to the location immediately following the jsr and  
once r5 has been adjusted to point to the location after the argument  
list it becomes a return address. This programming technique is  
dependent on the subprogram and its callers agreeing on the number of  
arguments though it's possible to do a vararg style as well. It's  
necessary for the subprogram to pick up the arguments and adjust the  
linkage register accordingly AND to return to the caller with the same  
register named in the rts instruction as was used in the calling jsr.

/ variable argument list with linkage register
	jsr r5,some_fn; $argc; arg1; arg2; ... argn

/ in the function it's necessary to pick up all the args

some_fn: mov	(r5)+,r0	/ pick up argc
	beq	2f		/ if no arguments, process simplest case.
1:
/ pick up an argument:
	mov	(r5)+, somewhere
/ or
	mov	*(r5)+, somewhere
	...
	dec	r0
	bne	1b	/ process remaining arguments.
2:	...
	rts r5


I've seen other ways of processing arguments passed with this method  
that involved using indexing and adding the argument count to the  
linkage register. Tastes and mileage may vary.

Regards,
Milo

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Milo Velimirović,  Unix Computer Network Administrator
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