You dont have to use it yourself necessarily, but when you examine compiler generated assembly or if you want to know how to call libc functions understanding it is crucial. X86 64 register and instruction quick start cdot wiki. May 16, 2017 as you can see, the registers follow the x64 calling convention. And any parameters after that are pushed on the stack. Many of you are probably already familiar with the x64 calling convention 1 2 in 64bit windows where generally speaking first four parameters 3 are passed in registers rcx, rdx, r8 and r9 with 32 bytes of spill area reserved on stack just in case callee has to store the parameters on stack in order to free up the registers. Amd64 calling conventions for linux mac osx cse 378 fall 2010, section week 2 calling conventions calling conventions are a scheme for how functions receive parameters from their caller and how they return a result.
Theres a strict onetoone correspondence between the arguments to a function call and the registers used for. The x64 application binary interface abi uses a fourregister fastcall calling convention by default. In this article i will examine the stack frame layout of the newer 64bit version of the x86 architecture, x64. A common x64 calling convention is the microsoft 64 calling convention used for c style function calling see msdn, chen, and pietrek. X86 calling convention windows this article describes the. That means rcx, rdx, r8, r9 for integer, struct or pointer arguments in that order, and xmm0, xmm1, xmm2, xmm3 for floating point arguments. Furthermore, given a set of calling convention rules, highlevel language compilers. Two important differences between x86 and x64 are the 64bit addressing capability and a flat set of 16 64bit registers for general use. You may also notice other parameters are stored in some of the other registers. Apr 04, 2010 the difference in register usage is interesting given the effort to have only one calling convention in x64 visavis 32bit.
In each case functions with a small number of arguments 4 or 6 pass all arguments in registers. Note the calling convention covered here is different than the one used on x64 linux systems. May 02, 20 today well look at integer data types, bits, bytes, words and all that. The option mnofpretin387 causes such values to be returned in ordinary cpu registers instead. Here is a quick overview of common calling conventions. See the excellent wikipedia article on calling conventions. There are multiple calling conventions that exist today, especially on x86 platform. But it does not mean that the whole code of such a system is 64bit. The x64 64bit architecture designed by amd is based on intels x86 32bit architecture, supporting it natively. As a general rule, a function which follows the c calling conventions, and is appropriately declared see below in the c headers, can be called as a normal c function. As in the microsoft x64 calling convention, additional arguments are passed on the stack and the return value is stored in rax. The usual calling convention has functions return values of types float and double in an fpu register, even if there is no fpu.
The language never specified a calling convention, any more than the c language did. Int his video well look at the 32 bit and 64 bit general purpose registers. Rdi, rsi, rdx, rcx, r8 and r9 hold your first six parameters. The first four arguments are placed onto the registers. This could be converted to a reference to a specific compiler my guess is borland. Stack frame layout on x8664 eli benderskys website.
For example, given a set of calling convention rules, a programmer need not examine the definition of a subroutine to determine how parameters should be passed to that subroutine. There are only two calling conventions in use, effectively windows and unix. That would be true, if x86 and x64 would have the exact same isa, abi otherwise i. The x64 processor also provides several sets of floatingpoint registers. But x86 on windows has several other disadvantages that have nothing to do with the size of the addressable memory fewer registers, different calling convention, frame vs table based exceptions, even optimizer seems to work differently.
The registers rdi, rsi, rdx, rcx, r8, and r9 are used for integer and. Other registers need to have their contents saved by the callee the function being called before using them. Remember this is from the linux specific appendix to the abi, and even for linux its informative not. In a pc context, 32bit means x86 and 64bit means x8664. Download update for windows vista for x64based systems. Amd64 calling conventions for linux mac osx cse 378 fall. You can download the starter project for this tutorial here. That still doesnt tell you which has the this pointer. The focus will be on linux and other oses following the official system v amd64 abi. This is known as an architectures calling convention. Where in the linux kernel source can i see it defined. Nearly all modern operating systems have versions for intel 64 architecture.
If you use gcc to compile 64bit binaries on linux however you will see. Oct 23, 2007 to start the download, click the download button and then do one of the following, or select another language from change language and then click change. This provides a welldefined location for the called program to save and restore the corresponding argument if the value passed in the register would otherwise be overwritten. Because the x86 instruction set uses 32bit registers and the x8664 instruction set uses 64bit registers, and because for each instruction set there is a single abi used by all linux installations.
For caller cleanup and callee cleanup conventions these vary in x86 processing but have been unified in x8664. Remember this is from the linuxspecific appendix to the abi, and even for linux its informative not. In x8632 parameters for linux system call are passed using registers. Large unix developers also ship 64bit versions, for example, linux debian 3. We will summarize the calling convention as it applies to decaf. The registers rdi, rsi, rdx, rcx, r8, and r9 are used for integer and memory address. Space is allocated on the call stack as a shadow store for callees to save those registers. Under linux this would be called an application binary interface abi. The original set of eight 128bit sse registers is increased to sixteen. While this is true, its simply a leftover from the code that sets up the stack for the remaining parameters. The calling convention is defined in detail in system v application binary interfaceamd64 architecture processor supplement.
To understand the c calling convention, you should. X64 calling convention this article describes the calling. Oct 30, 20 as far as i know there is only one calling convention in x64 fastcall. When you call a function in x64, the manner and use of the registers follows a very specific convention. Today well look at integer data types, bits, bytes, words and all that. There are a lot more registers in x86, but this video concludes the gpr. I read here that the arguments after rdx are esi, edi, ebp or for x64 rsi, rdi, rbp, i dont see it documented in wikipedias page for calling conventions, but int80h seems to indicate that windows also uses this convention. In the 64bit calling convention the caller passes the first four arguments in registers but must reserve space on the stack for them. I have no intention of detailing the complete x64 calling convention here.
All three calling conventions use eax for 32bit return this is an entirely stack based calling convention for parameter passing. It is sometimes referred to as x8664, amd64, or, cloned by intel, em64t or intel64. One other thing to remember about this convention, is that the callee never cleans up the stack. There is no universal standardeach compiler designer has a different implementation of the convention. The first parameter is the rcx register, the second one rdx, the third r8 and the fourth r9. The article concluded with a useful diagram presenting the stack frame layout of a typical function call. Most of the burden for following the calling rules falls upon the assembly program. Calling convention we will use the standard linux function calling convention. Most of this standard is followed by gnu compilers version 3. I have never encountered this convention before but the idea is that some parameters are passed through the registers and rest through the stack. The calling convention is a protocol about how to call and return from routines. Intrinsic functions that dont allocate stack space, and dont call other functions, sometimes use other volatile registers to pass additional register. The x86 architecture is used with many different calling conventions.
That is the essence of the calling convention and because of four dedicated registers, you will. Jul 11, 20 in vs20 download here, we have introduced a new calling convention known as vector calling convention but before we go on and introduce the new calling convention let us take a look at the lay of the land today. The x64 calling convention was able to get rid of vestigial pieces like calling convention options and nearly drop x87, but this bit of history sticks with us. On x8664 linux, the first six function arguments are passed in registers %rdi, %rsi. For concreteness, we learn the x8664 calling conventions for linux. Due to the small number of architectural registers, the x86 calling conventions mostly pass arguments on the stack, while the return value or a pointer to it is passed in a register. The caller uses registers to pass the first 6 arguments to the callee. Adhering to calling conventions ensures that your functions wont step. In the linux, bsd and mac operating systems, there are fewer compatibility problems because a more or less official standard is defined.
Amd64 calling conventions for linux mac osx calling conventions. The microsoft x64 calling convention is followed on windows and preboot uefi for long mode on x8664. Well also look at the general purpose register set. Is an x64 assembly function responsible for preserving. Its the function calling convention used by modern systems. At this point you should be aware of x64 calling convention refer. This article describes the calling conventions used when programming x86 architecture. Do not use the fpu registers for return values of functions. May 25, 2017 int his video well look at the 32 bit and 64 bit general purpose registers. The 64bit versions of the original x86 registers are named.
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