abrash-black-book/09-06.md
2013-12-30 20:26:41 +11:00

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**LISTING 9.5 L9-5.ASM**
; Divides an arbitrarily long unsigned dividend by a 16-bit unsigned
; divisor. C near-callable as:
; unsigned int Div(unsigned int * Dividend,
; int DividendLength, unsigned int Divisor,
; unsigned int * Quotient);
;
; Returns the remainder of the division.
;
; Tested with TASM 2.
parms struc
dw 2 dup (?) ;pushed BP & return address
Dividend dw ? ;pointer to value to divide, stored in Intel
; order, with lsb at lowest address, msb at
; highest. Must be composed of an integral
; number of words
DividendLength dw ? ;# of bytes in Dividend. Must be a multiple
; of 2
Divisor dw ? ;value by which to divide. Must not be zero,
; or a Divide By Zero interrupt will occur
Quotient dw ? ;pointer to buffer in which to store the
; result of the division, in Intel order.
; The quotient returned is of the same
; length as the dividend
parmsends
.model small
.code
public _Div
_Divprocnear
push bp ;preserve caller's stack frame
mov bp,sp ;point to our stack frame
push si ;preserve caller's register variables
push di
std ;we're working from msb to lsb
mov ax,ds
mov es,ax ;for STOS
mov cx,[bp+DividendLength]
sub cx,2
mov si,[bp+Dividend]
add si,cx ;point to the last word of the dividend
; (the most significant word)
mov di,[bp+Quotient]
add di,cx ;point to the last word of the quotient
; buffer (the most significant word)
mov bx,[bp+Divisor]
shr cx,1
inc cx ;# of words to process
sub dx,dx ;convert initial divisor word to a 32-bit
;value for DIV
DivLoop:
lod sw ;get next most significant word of divisor
div bx
sto sw ;save this word of the quotient
;DX contains the remainder at this point,
; ready to prepend to the next divisor word
loop DivLoop
mov ax,dx ;return the remainder
cld ;restore default Direction flag setting
pop di ;restore caller's register variables
pop si
pop bp ;restore caller's stack frame
ret
_Divendp
end
**LISTING 9.6 L9-6.C**
/* Sample use of Div function to perform division when the result
doesn't fit in 16 bits */
#include <stdio.h>
extern unsigned int Div(unsigned int * Dividend,
int DividendLength, unsigned int Divisor,
unsigned int * Quotient);
main() {
unsigned long m, i = 0x20000001;
unsigned int k, j = 0x10;
k = Div((unsigned int *)&i, sizeof(i), j, (unsigned int *)&m);
printf("%lu / %u = %lu r %u\n", i, j, m, k);
}
#### Sweet Spot Revisited {#Heading9}
Way back in Volume 1, Number 1 of *PC TECHNIQUES*, (April/May 1990) I
wrote the very first of that magazine's HAX (\#1), which extolled the
virtues of placing your most commonly-used automatic (stack-based)
variables within the stack's "sweet spot," the area between +127 to -128
bytes away from BP, the stack frame pointer. The reason was that the
8088 can store addressing displacements that fall within that range in a
single byte; larger displacements require a full word of storage,
increasing code size by a byte per instruction, and thereby slowing down
performance due to increased instruction fetching time.
This takes on new prominence in 386 native mode, where straying from the
sweet spot costs not one, but two or three bytes. Where the 8088 had two
possible displacement sizes, either byte or word, on the 386 there are
three possible sizes: byte, word, or dword. In native mode (32-bit
protected mode), however, a prefix byte is needed in order to use a
word-sized displacement, so a variable located outside the sweet spot
requires either two extra bytes (an extra displacement byte plus a
prefix byte) or three extra bytes (a dword displacement rather than a
byte displacement). Either way, instructions grow alarmingly.
Performance may or may not suffer from missing the sweet spot, depending
on the processor, the memory architecture, and the code mix. On a 486,
prefix bytes often cost a cycle; on a 386SX, increased code size often
slows performance because instructions must be fetched through the
half-pint 16-bit bus; on a 386, the effect depends on the instruction
mix and whether there's a cache.
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![](images/i.jpg) *On balance, though, it's as important to keep your most-used variables in the stack's sweet spot in 386 native mode as it was on the 8088.*
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In assembly, it's easy to control the organization of your stack frame.
In C, however, you'll have to figure out the allocation scheme your
compiler uses to allocate automatic variables, and declare automatics
appropriately to produce the desired effect. It can be done: I did it in
Turbo C some years back, and trimmed the size of a program (admittedly,
a large one) by several K—not bad, when you consider that the "sweet
spot" optimization is essentially free, with no code reorganization,
change in logic, or heavy thinking involved.