ASM Community

Strange, wierd things comes with titorials. If I had no needs to discuss it in English, I would be able to write whole novel about it. In this post I discuss just a little part of it, and continue if nobody shuts me up. We start with 3dFrames.asm First example in Examples1 in MASM32. I don't post whole original source, you all have it in MASM32. Let's go to .data section first.

    .data
        szDisplayName db "3D Frames",0
        CommandLine   dd 0
        hWnd          dd 0
        hInstance     dd 0

1.We don't use CommandLine anywhere in the prog 2.We ALREADY know hInstance for our prog , if we don't change base option it would be 400000h if we rebase it - we will now new base anyway. So let's save 8 byte of our prog and make it faster each time we need to use hInstance. We make it immideate. It's pushed for 1 clock, wich 1 clock faster then to push memory.

    .data
        szDisplayName db "3D Frames",0
;        CommandLine   dd 0
        hWnd          dd 0
;        hInstance     dd 0
         hInstance     EQU 400000h

Let's go to start of .code section

        invoke GetModuleHandle, NULL
        mov hInstance, eax

        invoke GetCommandLine
        mov CommandLine, eax

.0040107C: 6A00 push 000 .0040107E: E801060000 call .000401684 -------- (1) .00401083: A312204000 mov [000402012],eax .00401088: E8F1050000 call .00040167E -------- (2) .0040108D: A30A204000 mov [00040200A],eax We don't need any of this code. We don't use command line and we already know hInstance of our program. And as you see it takes 22 byte and hundreds of codes. So we can comment it or delete. Now we come to the standard WinMain wich I realy hate... invoke WinMain,hInstance,NULL,CommandLine,SW_SHOWDEFAULT Look hInstance even in old version dublicate global variable hInstance wich is accesible for any proc in the prog. After we change it to constant we just steal the sence from the thing which already had no sence. So we don't need this parameter at all. The second parameter NULL (hPrevInstance) drives me crazy each time I see it? Who can give a logical explonation what for in asm prog we need hPrevInstance? As memorial tomb on C grave for Win 3.1? Through it away! CommandLine - we don't use CommandLine in the prog. The last is funny one :) We suppouse to use it for ShowWindow in the WinMain :) But: 1. This WinMain doesn't use it at all. 2. It's better to use imm. for this 'cause it faster. So none of the four parameters is needed. If you want still use WinMain change the proto to WinMain PROTO ;and that's all and cal it: call WinMain it will save you 12 bytes and 8 clocks, spent for NOTHING. Start of our prog will be:

hInstance equ 400000h
.data
        hWnd dd 0
        szDisplayName db "3D Frames",0
.code
	call WinMain

Then we can see further C++ simulation:

WinMain proc hInst     :DWORD,
             hPrevInst :DWORD,
             CmdLine   :DWORD,
             CmdShow   :DWORD

        ;====================
        ; Put LOCALs on stack
        ;====================

        LOCAL wc   :WNDCLASSEX
        LOCAL msg  :MSG

        LOCAL Wwd  :DWORD
        LOCAL Wht  :DWORD
        LOCAL Wtx  :DWORD
        LOCAL Wty  :DWORD

        ;==================================================
        ; Fill WNDCLASSEX structure with required variables
        ;==================================================

        mov wc.cbSize,         sizeof WNDCLASSEX
        mov wc.style,          CS_HREDRAW or CS_VREDRAW \
                               or CS_BYTEALIGNWINDOW
        mov wc.lpfnWndProc,    offset WndProc
        mov wc.cbClsExtra,     NULL
        mov wc.cbWndExtra,     NULL
        m2m wc.hInstance,      hInst   ;<< NOTE: macro not mnemonic
        mov wc.hbrBackground,  COLOR_BTNFACE+