Grom_PE 4 days ago

flat assembler g (fasmg) does this. It has a powerful macro language, in which, among other architectures and formats, it implements x86 and ELF/PE/macho and is able to assemble itself.

I like to use it for scripting for turning binary formats to text and vice-versa.

IshKebab 4 days ago

This is very cool. On the topic of assembly, does anyone know of a language that is higher level than assembly, but retains the property that the output doesn't depend on the compiler or its flags?

I want it for low level CPU benchmarks and tests. Using C or assembly for those both suck.

I don't really know exactly how this would look (is the register allocator part of the spec?) but has anyone tried something like this?

  • giancarlostoro 4 days ago

    There was a post on HN where someone implemented a new language compiler purely from Assembly, and shows you from nothing to the very end where it looked mostly like a LISP assembly language. It was really neat. Sadly I dont have the buzzwords for Google to find it anymore, used to be able to find the powerpoint slides for it.

    I forgot about HLA (High Level Assembly) though I have not used it personally, there were also a few others like C-- as well:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Level_Assembly

  • asgeir 4 days ago

    Have you tried looking into something like NASM's macro functionality?

  • actionfromafar 4 days ago

    That sounds like a tall order. If you want it for CPU benchmarks, you presumably want to be able to use all real CPU machine instructions. Or a simpler language instruction set but with an optimizer, but it's hard to write an optimizer and then you could never change the optimizer.

  • pjmlp 4 days ago

    Naturally, it is time for some Forth. :)

  • Levitating 4 days ago

    > but retains the property that the output doesn't depend on the compiler or its flags?

    That's not an inherent property of assemblers, and not the case in practice either.

    • IshKebab 4 days ago

      Yes I know there are some minor caveats with pseudo-instructions and relocations but in general it is basically true. You can't wildly change the output without changing the source like you can with C.

zyedidia 4 days ago

This is very cool! I'm always on the lookout for extensible assemblers. I especially want one that can handle a normalized subset of GNU assembly so that it can be used on the output of LLVM or GCC (using existing assembly languages, but assembling them in non-standard ways or with extensions).

teo_zero 2 days ago

Interesting. If only it supported little-endian architectures!

jas39 4 days ago

My complements on this. Assembler is the ultimate understanding and control.