x86-64 ISA

x86-64 calling conventions

passing arguments and return value:

Up to six integer or pointer arguments **are passed by registers **in the order:

rdi rsi rdx rcx r8 r9

rax is used to return up to 64-bit values. And rdx can be used to return up to 128-bit values.

More or larger arguments and return values are passed through the stack.

Assembly code examples

C code file mstore.c:

long mult2(long);

// x in %rdi, y in %rsi, dest in %rdx
void multstore(long x, long y, long *dest)
{
    long t = mult2(x);
    *dest = t;
}

Command line:

linux> gcc -Og -S mstore.c

The generated x86-64 assembly-code:

multstore:
	pushq	%rbx	
	movq	%rdx, %rbx
	call	mult2@PLT
	movq	%rax, (%rbx)
	popq	%rbx
	ret

This function has three register sized arguments, so the caller will put them in the first three registers:

  • x in rdi
  • y in rsi
  • dest in rdx

So the first instruction is pushing the contents of rbx register onto the program stack before it gets overwritten. This is because: rbx is a **callee saved register ** which means a function that overwrites it needs to save it before modification and restore it before returning. All information about local variable names or data types has been stripped away.

The second instruction moves the data from rdx to rbx. This is copying the pointer into rbx before making the procedure call. Because rdx is caller saved, the compiler decides to move dest to a register rather than save it on the stack.

The x and y variables are still in rdi and rsi so the arguments to mult2 are already in the right places when the mult2 function is called.

When mult2 returns the return value is an rax, so the next line of C code corresponds to exactly one line of assembly which is to move the 64-bit return value from rax to the memory location addressed by the value in rbx, that is copying it into dest.

	popq	%rbx
	ret

The implicit function return generates two assembly instructions. One to pop the stack and restore the previous value of rbx, and finally the return instruction.

NOTE: GAS(GNU AS) assembly instructions are generally suffixed with the letters “b”, “s”, “w”, “l”, “q” or “t” to determine what size operand is being manipulated. The size designation suffixes:

  • b = byte (8 bit).
  • s = single (32-bit floating point).
  • w = word (16 bit).
  • l = long (32 bit integer or 64-bit floating point).
  • q = quad (64 bit).
  • t = ten bytes (80-bit floating point).

Functionally equivalent assembly-code:

multstore:
	pushq	%rdx	
	call	mult2@PLT
	popq	%rdx
	movq	%rax,  (%rdx)
	ret

Object-code

If we use the -c command-line option, GCC will both complier and assemble the code

linux> gcc -Og -c mstore.c

This will generate an object-code file mstore.o that is in binary format and hence cannot be viewed directly. Here is a part of hexadecimal representation:

hex format of object code

53 48 89 d3 e8 00 00 00 00 48 89 03 5b c3

This is the object code corresponding to the assembly instructions listed previously.

To inspect the contents of machine-code files, we use the program OBJDUMP as a disassembler.

linux> objdump -d mstore.o

The result is as follows:

Disassembly of section .text:

0000000000000000 <multstore>:
Offest	Bytes					Equivalent assembly languages
   0:	f3 0f 1e fa          	endbr64 
   4:	53                   	push   %rbx
   5:	48 89 d3             	mov    %rdx,%rbx
   8:	e8 00 00 00 00       	callq  d <multstore+0xd>
   d:	48 89 03             	mov    %rax,(%rbx)
  10:	5b                   	pop    %rbx
  11:	c3                   	retq

### a⊕b = (¬a ∧ b) ∨ (a ∧¬b)

Reference