Ophis/book/x740.html
2014-05-25 01:46:17 -07:00

283 lines
4.8 KiB
HTML

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<HTML
><HEAD
><TITLE
>Procedures and register saving</TITLE
><META
NAME="GENERATOR"
CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.79"><LINK
REL="HOME"
TITLE="Programming with Ophis"
HREF="book1.html"><LINK
REL="UP"
TITLE="Structured Programming"
HREF="c680.html"><LINK
REL="PREVIOUS"
TITLE="The stack"
HREF="x734.html"><LINK
REL="NEXT"
TITLE="Variables"
HREF="x758.html"></HEAD
><BODY
CLASS="SECTION"
BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"
TEXT="#000000"
LINK="#0000FF"
VLINK="#840084"
ALINK="#0000FF"
><DIV
CLASS="NAVHEADER"
><TABLE
SUMMARY="Header navigation table"
WIDTH="100%"
BORDER="0"
CELLPADDING="0"
CELLSPACING="0"
><TR
><TH
COLSPAN="3"
ALIGN="center"
>Programming with Ophis</TH
></TR
><TR
><TD
WIDTH="10%"
ALIGN="left"
VALIGN="bottom"
><A
HREF="x734.html"
ACCESSKEY="P"
>&#60;&#60;&#60; Previous</A
></TD
><TD
WIDTH="80%"
ALIGN="center"
VALIGN="bottom"
>Structured Programming</TD
><TD
WIDTH="10%"
ALIGN="right"
VALIGN="bottom"
><A
HREF="x758.html"
ACCESSKEY="N"
>Next &#62;&#62;&#62;</A
></TD
></TR
></TABLE
><HR
ALIGN="LEFT"
WIDTH="100%"></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="SECTION"
><H1
CLASS="SECTION"
><A
NAME="AEN740"
>Procedures and register saving</A
></H1
><P
> All programming languages are designed around the concept of
procedures.<A
NAME="AEN743"
HREF="#FTN.AEN743"
><SPAN
CLASS="footnote"
>[1]</SPAN
></A
>
Procedures let you break a computation up into different parts,
then use them independently. However, compilers do a lot of work
for you behind the scenes to let you think this. Consider the
following assembler code. How many times does the loop
execute?
</P
><TABLE
BORDER="0"
BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0"
WIDTH="100%"
><TR
><TD
><PRE
CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING"
>loop: ldx #$10 jsr do'stuff dex bne loop</PRE
></TD
></TR
></TABLE
><P
> The correct answer is <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"I don't know, but
it <I
CLASS="EMPHASIS"
>should</I
> be 16."</SPAN
> The reason we don't
know is because we're assuming here that
the <TT
CLASS="LITERAL"
>do'stuff</TT
> routine doesn't change the value
of the X register. If it does, than all sorts of chaos could
result. For major routines that aren't called often but are
called in places where the register state is important, you should
store the old registers on the stack with code like this:
</P
><TABLE
BORDER="0"
BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0"
WIDTH="100%"
><TR
><TD
><PRE
CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING"
>do'stuff:
pha
txa
pha
tya
pha
;; Rest of do'stuff goes here
pla
tay
pla
tax
pla
rts</PRE
></TD
></TR
></TABLE
><P
> (Remember, the last item pushed onto the stack is the first one
pulled off, so you have to restore them in reverse order.) That's
three more bytes on the stack, so you don't want to do this if you
don't absolutely have to. If <TT
CLASS="LITERAL"
>do'stuff</TT
>
actually <I
CLASS="EMPHASIS"
>doesn't</I
> touch X, there's no need to
save and restore the value. This technique is
called <I
CLASS="EMPHASIS"
>callee-save</I
>.
</P
><P
> The reverse technique is called <I
CLASS="EMPHASIS"
>caller-save</I
>
and pushes important registers onto the stack before the routine
is called, then restores them afterwards. Each technique has its
advantages and disadvantages. The best way to handle it in your
own code is to mark at the top of each routine which registers
need to be saved by the caller. (It's also useful to note things
like how it takes arguments and how it returns values.)
</P
></DIV
><H3
CLASS="FOOTNOTES"
>Notes</H3
><TABLE
BORDER="0"
CLASS="FOOTNOTES"
WIDTH="100%"
><TR
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
VALIGN="TOP"
WIDTH="5%"
><A
NAME="FTN.AEN743"
HREF="x740.html#AEN743"
><SPAN
CLASS="footnote"
>[1]</SPAN
></A
></TD
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
VALIGN="TOP"
WIDTH="95%"
><P
>Yes, all of them. Functional languages
just let you do more things with them, logic programming has
implicit calls to query procedures, and
object-oriented <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"methods"</SPAN
> are just normal procedures
that take one extra argument in secret.</P
></TD
></TR
></TABLE
><DIV
CLASS="NAVFOOTER"
><HR
ALIGN="LEFT"
WIDTH="100%"><TABLE
SUMMARY="Footer navigation table"
WIDTH="100%"
BORDER="0"
CELLPADDING="0"
CELLSPACING="0"
><TR
><TD
WIDTH="33%"
ALIGN="left"
VALIGN="top"
><A
HREF="x734.html"
ACCESSKEY="P"
>&#60;&#60;&#60; Previous</A
></TD
><TD
WIDTH="34%"
ALIGN="center"
VALIGN="top"
><A
HREF="book1.html"
ACCESSKEY="H"
>Home</A
></TD
><TD
WIDTH="33%"
ALIGN="right"
VALIGN="top"
><A
HREF="x758.html"
ACCESSKEY="N"
>Next &#62;&#62;&#62;</A
></TD
></TR
><TR
><TD
WIDTH="33%"
ALIGN="left"
VALIGN="top"
>The stack</TD
><TD
WIDTH="34%"
ALIGN="center"
VALIGN="top"
><A
HREF="c680.html"
ACCESSKEY="U"
>Up</A
></TD
><TD
WIDTH="33%"
ALIGN="right"
VALIGN="top"
>Variables</TD
></TR
></TABLE
></DIV
></BODY
></HTML
>