Princeton University
COS 217: Introduction to Programming Systems

Assignment 4: UNIX Commands in IA-32 Assembly Language

Purpose

The purpose of this assignment is to help you learn about IA-32 architecture and assembly language programming. It also will give you the opportunity to review dynamic memory management in C, and to learn more about the GNU/UNIX programming tools, especially bash, xemacs, gcc, and gdb for assembly language programs.

Background: wc

The UNIX operating system has a command named wc (word count). In its simplest form, wc reads characters from stdin until end-of-file, and prints to stdout a count of how many lines, words, and characters it has read. A "word" is a sequence of characters that is delimited by one or more "whitespace" characters. "Whitespace" is defined by the C standard function isspace. The program prints the three counts on the same line -- the line count in a field of width 7, the word count in a field of width 8, and the character count in a field of width 8.

Consider some examples. In the following, a space is shown as "s" and a newline character as "n".

If the file named "proverb" contains these characters:

Learningsissan
treasureswhichn
accompaniessitsn
ownerseverywhere.n
--sChinesesproverbn

then the command:

$ wc < proverb

prints this line to standard output:

ssssss5ssssss12ssssss82n
If the file "proverb2" contains these characters:
Learningsissan
treasureswhichn
accompaniessitsn
ownerseverywhere.n
--sssChinesesproverb

(note that the last "line" does not end with a newline character) then the command:

$ wc < proverb2

prints this line to standard output:

ssssss4ssssss12ssssss83n

Background: sort

Another commonly used UNIX command is sort. In its simplest form, it reads lines from stdin, sorts them into ascending (i.e. alphabetical, i.e. lexicographic) order, and prints them to stdout. For example, if the file proverb contains these lines:

Learning is a
treasure which
accompanies its
owner everywhere.
-- Chinese proverb

then the command

$ sort < proverb

prints these lines to standard output:

-- Chinese proverb
Learning is a
accompanies its
owner everywhere.
treasure which

Note that the special character '-' has an ASCII code that is less than the ASCII codes of all alphabetic characters, and so the line that begins with '-' appears first.  Also note that the uppercase characters have ASCII codes that are less than the ASCII codes of the lower case characters, and so the line that begins with 'L' appears before the line that begins with 'a'.

Your Task

Your task is to create your own versions of the wc and sort commands in C and in IA-32 assembly language, as specified below.

mywc

Create a program named mywc. The program should implement the subset of wc described above. (The program need not process command-line arguments as wc does.) More precisely, create a C version of the program in file mywc.c and an assembly language version in file mywc.s.

Hint: A printf format string can contain "field widths." For example, the printf format string "%8d" indicates that the given integer should be printed in a field of width 8, padded with leading spaces.

It is acceptable to use global (i.e. bss section and data section) variables in mywc.s.

mysort

Create a program named mysort. The functionality of the mysort program should be a subset of the functionality of the UNIX standard sort program. The mysort program should read lines from stdin, sort them in ascending order, and print them to stdout. It need not process command-line arguments as the UNIX sort program does. It may assume that the final line of stdin ends with a newline character.

You should not make any assumptions about how many lines are in stdin. Hint: You may find the sort programs discussed in early precepts helpful. However, you may assume that no line of stdin contains more than 1023 characters. (The terminating newline character is included in that count.) Your program need not work properly when a line of stdin contains more than 1023 characters, but it should not corrupt memory. Hint: You will find the fgets and fputs functions useful.

The program's primary data structure should be an array of pointers. Each pointer should point to the zero'th character of a null-terminated array of characters (that is, a string). Each string should contain the characters of one line of stdin. The program should dynamically allocate the memory occupied by each string. The amount of memory allocated for each string should depending upon the length of the string.

There should be no memory leaks in the program.

The program should use these functions to sort the array of strings:

/*------------------------------------------------------------------*/

void swap(char *ppcArray[], int iOne, int iTwo)

/* Swap ppcArray[iOne] and ppcArray[iTwo]. */
 
{
   char *pcTemp;
   pcTemp = ppcArray[iOne];
   ppcArray[iOne] = ppcArray[iTwo];
   ppcArray[iTwo] = pcTemp;
}

/*------------------------------------------------------------------*/

int partition(char *ppcArray[], int iLeft, int iRight)

/* Divide ppcArray[iLeft...iRight] into two partitions so elements 
   in the first partition are <= elements in the second partition.
   Return the index of the element that marks the partition 
   boundary. */

{
   int iFirst = iLeft-1;
   int iLast = iRight;

   while (1)
   {
      while (strcmp(ppcArray[++iFirst], ppcArray[iRight]) < 0)
         ;
      while (strcmp(ppcArray[iRight], ppcArray[--iLast]) < 0)
         if (iLast == iLeft)
            break;
      if (iFirst >= iLast)
         break;
      swap(ppcArray, iFirst, iLast);
   }
   swap(ppcArray, iFirst, iRight);
   return iFirst;
}

/*------------------------------------------------------------------*/

void quicksort(char *ppcArray[], int iLeft, int iRight)

/* Sort ppcArray[iLeft...iRight] in ascending order. */

{
   if (iRight > iLeft)
   {
      int iMid = partition(ppcArray, iLeft, iRight);
      quicksort(ppcArray, iLeft, iMid - 1);
      quicksort(ppcArray, iMid + 1, iRight);
   }
}

/*------------------------------------------------------------------*/
Those functions implement the quicksort algorithm as presented in the Sedgewick textbook.

More precisely, create these files:

You need not create a mysort.s file.

Somewhat unrealistically, you need not create C header (.h) files; instead, it is sufficient to place explicit function declarations in each .c file as necessary.

Your source code files should be such that you can build the mysort program using mysort.c along with either quicksort.c or quicksort.s, either partition.c or partition.s, and either swap.c or swap.s.

Two small complications:

Testing

Develop a UNIX shell script named grade4 and some associated text files to build and execute your programs. Recall that a UNIX shell script is simply a text file that contains UNIX commands, and that has been made executable via the chmod command:

chmod 700 grade4

Describe your testing strategy in your readme file.

It is acceptable for your grade4 script to call other scripts that you create.

Logistics

You should develop on hats. Use xemacs to create source code. Use gdb to debug.

You should not use a C compiler to produce your assembly language programs. Doing so would be considered an instance of academic dishonesty. Rather you should produce your assembly language programs manually.

We encourage you to develop "flattened C" code (as described in precepts) to bridge the gap between your "normal" C code and your assembly language code. Using flattened C code as a bridge can eliminate logic errors from your assembly language code, leaving only the possibility of translation errors.

We also encourage you to use your flattened C code as comments in your assembly language code. Such comments can dramatically enhance the understandability of your assembly language code.

You should submit:

Your readme file should contain:

Submit your work electronically via the commands:

/u/cos217/bin/i686/submit 4 mywc.c mywc.s
/u/cos217/bin/i686/submit 4 mysort.c quicksort.c quicksort.s partition.c partition.s swap.c swap.s 
/u/cos217/bin/i686/submit 4 grade4 yourothershellscripts yourtextfiles
/u/cos217/bin/i686/submit 4 readme

Grading

We will grade your work on functionality and design. We will consider understandability to be an important aspect of good design.

Comments in your assembly language programs are especially important. Each assembly language function (especially the "main" function) should have a comment that describes what the function does. Local comments within your assembly language functions are equally important. Comments copied from corresponding "flattened C" code are particularly helpful.

To encourage good coding practices, we will take off points based on warning messages during preparation of your programs.