mirror of
https://github.com/fadden/6502bench.git
synced 2024-09-10 13:54:52 +00:00
116 lines
5.3 KiB
HTML
116 lines
5.3 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
|
|
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
|
|
|
|
<head>
|
|
<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type" />
|
|
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" />
|
|
<link href="main.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
|
|
<title>Code Generation & Assembly - 6502bench SourceGen</title>
|
|
</head>
|
|
|
|
<body>
|
|
<div id="content">
|
|
<h1>6502bench SourceGen: Code Generation & Assembly</h1>
|
|
<p><a href="index.html">Back to index</a></p>
|
|
|
|
<p>SourceGen can generate an assembly source file that, when fed into
|
|
the target assembler, will recreate the original data file exactly.
|
|
Every assembler is different, so support must be added to SourceGen
|
|
for each.</p>
|
|
<p>The generation / assembly dialog can be opened with File > Assemble.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<h2><a name="supported">Supported Assemblers</a></h2>
|
|
|
|
<p>SourceGen currently supports the following cross-assemblers:</p>
|
|
<ul>
|
|
<li><a href="https://cc65.github.io/">cc65</a> v2.17 or later</li>
|
|
<li><a href="https://www.brutaldeluxe.fr/products/crossdevtools/merlin/">Merlin 32</a> v1.0.0 or later</li>
|
|
</ul>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<h3><a name="version">Version-Specific Code Generation</a></h3>
|
|
|
|
<p>Code generation must be tailored to the specific version of the
|
|
assembler. This is most easily understood with an example.</p>
|
|
<p>If you write <code>MVN $01,$02</code>, the assembler is expected to output
|
|
<code>54 02 01</code>, with the arguments reversed. cc65 v2.17 doesn't
|
|
do that; this is a bug that was fixed in a later version. So if you're
|
|
generating code for v2.17, you want to create source code with the
|
|
arguments the wrong way around.</p>
|
|
<p>Having version-dependent source code is a bad idea, so SourceGen
|
|
just outputs raw hex bytes for MVN/MVP instructions. This yields the
|
|
correct code for all versions of the assembler, but is ugly and
|
|
annoying. So we want to output actual MVN/MVP instructions when producing
|
|
code for newer versions of the assembler.</p>
|
|
<p>When you configure a cross-assembler, SourceGen executes it and
|
|
extracts the version information from the command-line output stream.
|
|
This is used by the generator to ensure that the output will compile.
|
|
If no assembler is configured, SourceGen will produce code optimized
|
|
for the latest version of the assembler.</p>
|
|
|
|
<h2><a name="generate">Generating Source Code</a></h2>
|
|
|
|
<p>Cross assemblers tend to generate additional files, either compiler
|
|
intermediaries ("file.o") or metadata ("_FileInformation.txt"). Some
|
|
generators may produce multiple source files, perhaps a link script or
|
|
symbol definition header to go with the assembly source. To avoid
|
|
spreading files across the filesystem, SourceGen does all of its work
|
|
in the same directory where the project lives. Before you can generate
|
|
code, you have to have given your project a name by saving it.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>The Generate and Assemble dialog has a drop-down list near the top
|
|
that lets you pick which assembler to target. The name of the assembler
|
|
will be shown with the detected version number. If the assembler
|
|
executable isn't configured, "[latest version]" will be shown instead
|
|
of a version number.</p>
|
|
<p>The Settings button will take you directly to the assembler configuration
|
|
tab in the application settings dialog.</p>
|
|
<p>Hit the Generate button to generate the source code into a file on disk.
|
|
The file will use the project name, with the ".dis65" replaced by
|
|
"_<assembler>.S".</p>
|
|
<p>The first 64KiB of each generated file will be shown in the preview
|
|
window. If multiple files were generated, you can use the "preview file"
|
|
drop-down to select between them. Line numbers are
|
|
prepended to each line to make it easier to track down errors.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<h3><a name="localizer">Label Localizer</a></h3>
|
|
<p>The label localizer is an optional feature that automatically converts
|
|
some labels to an assembler-specific less-than-global label format. Local
|
|
labels may be reusable (e.g. using "]LOOP" for multiple consecutive
|
|
loops is easier to understand than giving each one a unique label) or
|
|
reduce the size of a generated link table. There are usually restrictions
|
|
on local labels, e.g. references to them may not be allowed to cross a
|
|
global label definition, which the localizer factors in automatically.</p>
|
|
<p>The localizer is somewhat experimental at this time, and can be
|
|
disabled from the
|
|
<a href="settings.html#app-settings">application settings</a>.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<h2><a name="assemble">Cross-Assembling Generated Code</a></h2>
|
|
|
|
<p>After generating sources, if you have a cross-assembler executable
|
|
configured, you can run it by clicking the "Run Assembler" button. The
|
|
command-line output will be displayed, with stdout and stderr separated.
|
|
(I'd prefer them to be interleaved, but that's not what the system
|
|
provides.)</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>The output will show the assembler's exit code, which will be zero
|
|
on success (note: sometimes they lie.) If it appeared to succeed,
|
|
SourceGen will then compare the assembler's output to the original file,
|
|
and report any differences.</p>
|
|
<p>Failures here may be due to bugs in the cross-assembler or in
|
|
SourceGen. However, SourceGen can generally work around assembler bugs,
|
|
so any failure is an opportunity for improvement.</p>
|
|
|
|
</div>
|
|
|
|
<div id="footer">
|
|
<p><a href="index.html">Back to index</a></p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</body>
|
|
<!-- Copyright 2018 faddenSoft -->
|
|
</html>
|