Simtel MSDOS - Coast to Coast/simteldosarchivecoasttocoast2.iso/asmutil/d86v322.zip/D06.DOC

Text File | 1989-12-15 | 20KB | 434 lines

CHAPTER 6   MEMORY DISPLAY OPTIONS


Memory Display Windows

The debugger allows you to set up windows into your program
memory space. Using these windows, you can view memory in a
variety of formats.  The windows will remain in effect until you
cancel them; updating themselves automatically if the memory
changes.

There are six single-line memory windows always present, in the
lower right portion of the screen.  In addition, you can have the
upper-right window display a 14-line page of memory values.


Single-Line Memory Windows

A single-line memory window line consists of a specification,
typed in by you, followed by a display, supplied by the debugger.

To type in a specification on any one of window lines 1 through
6, simply type the associated digit, 1 through 6, when the
debugger is in its main command mode.  The cursor will jump to
the beginning of the memory-window line you are specifying.  You
then type in a display format specification, followed by the
address of memory you want displayed.

The simplest form of the display format specification is a single
letter, signifying one of the display types available.  The
choices are:

    B  for hexadecimal bytes
    W  for hexadecimal words
    N  for decimal bytes
    D  for decimal words
    Q  for octal bytes
    O  for octal words
    T  for text; each byte reduced to one ASCII display
          character
    A  for ASCII text, each byte occupying 2 display
          characters (the exact display is spelled out later
          in this chapter)
    C  for ASCII characters, occupying 2 bytes if needed,
          otherwise one

A format specification of one of the above letters will cause the
debugger to display the array of bytes starting at the address
you specify, in the format indicated by the letter, as long as
there is room on the line. All letters in a format specification
(or in any other context in the debugger) can be typed in either
upper or lower case.
                                                              6-2

The format specification should be terminated by a comma.  After
the comma (and an optional space), you type the address of memory
you want displayed. This consists of two values, the segment
followed by the offset.  The values should be separated by a
comma. You can omit the segment value if you wish: in that case,
the current value of DS is used. The debugger reminds you that
you have specified this option by following what you type with 2
commas instead of one.

The value you type can take one of the following forms:

   a. a numeric constant, whose format is just as in the assembly
      language (leading zero means default hex, otherwise default
      decimal)

   b. a register name (IP is now accepted as a register name)

   c. a user symbol from the assembly language program being
      debugged.

After you type the address specification, you hit the ENTER key,
and the debugger fills out the rest of the line with the memory
display.

For example, if you want to display hex bytes starting at 01000
hex on display line 2, you type 2b,01000<ENTER>. The cursor jumps
to the line immediately when you type the 2, and it displays the
b,01000 on the line as you type it.  The b says you want hex
bytes, and the 01000 has a leading zero to signify a hexadecimal
address, not decimal.  When you press the ENTER key, the debugger
displays two commas, followed by the hex bytes.  If the memory is
zeroed, you will see 00 00 00 00 00 etc. to the end of the
display line.


Erasing Memory Display Lines

Any memory display window that you specify will remain in effect,
always updated to show the latest memory contents, until you
explicitly erase it. To erase a window, you type the number of
the window, followed by a blank.  The line will also be erased if
you start typing a format specification, and you hit the ENTER
key before you get to your address specification.

In the coming sections, many of the examples assume (and they say
so) that your display is blank before you type in the example.
You can always get a blank display by typing in each number
followed by a blank: "1 2 3 4 5 6 ".

If you accidentally type a digit and DON'T want to erase the line
your cursor has jumped to, press the ESC key to return to the
main command mode.
                                                              6-3

Continuation Lines

You may continue a memory display window onto the next line, by
placing a double quote mark " at the beginning of the next line.
You may do this in one of two ways: you may type the number of
the next line, followed by the double quote mark; or you may
simply type the double quote mark at the command level.  The
first method allows you to specify which window line you want
continued, if there is more than one.  The second method is more
convenient to use.  It places the quote mark on the last blank
line that immediately follows a non-blank line.

You may continue placing " marks on as many lines as you have,
creating a multi-line display.

The debugger follows the " mark with the address of memory being
displayed, followed by the memory, according to the start of the
type specification of the line being continued.  The memory
display is aligned with the display of above line.

If you are creating a multi-line display, and your specification
is a long one, you may wish to start the display at the beginning
of the next line, rather than after the specification on the
first line.  This will often give you more room.  You do this by
terminating the format specification with a slash / instead of a
comma.  For example, to display many hex bytes at the array
BYTE_ARRAY, type 1b/byte_array<ENTER> followed by five double
quote marks, when the memory display is empty.


Mixed Format Specification

Instead of having all your bytes or words on a line displayed in
the same format, you can mix your formats.  You do this by
providing more than one letter in your format specification.  The
debugger will display one memory unit for each letter-type you
specify.  The line will be filled out with the last type given.
For example, if you type 3nwb,01000<ENTER>, you will get a
display on memory line 3 of the decimal byte at 01000, the hex
word at 01001, and an array of hex bytes starting at 01003.


Numbers in a Format Specification

You may precede any letter in a format specification with a
number up to 255. The effect is the same as if you had repeated
the letter the given number of times.  For example, if you type 1
to go to memory line 1, followed by 4w10tb,02000<ENTER>, you will
get 4 hex words at 02000, 10 text characters at 02008, and an
array of hex bytes from 02012 filling out the rest of the line.
                                                              6-4

You may also end your format specification with a number up to
255.  This will cause the entire specification to be repeated the
given number of times. If there is room on the line for the full
number given, the display will stop there-- there will be no
repeating of the last type byte.  If there is not room on the
line for the full number of global iterations, the debugger will
stop at the end of the last iteration that would fit.  For
example, the specification b8 causes 8 hex bytes to be displayed,
and the remainder of the display line to be blank.  The
specification b3w9 will cause the debugger to try to output 9
records, each consisting of a hex byte followed by 3 hex words.
After putting out 2 such records, the debugger will see that
there is not room for a third full record, so it will stop.  This
stopping at the record boundary allows you to continue the
display, with correct alignment, on subsequent lines.


Spacing Between Memory Display Units

In general, the debugger provides a space between each unit (byte
or word) it displays.  There is an exception, however: the
debugger will not space between adjacent text characters (A,C, or
T specifications).

There are special specifiers G, J, and M, described in the
section below, that allow you to override the debugger's spacing
policies.


Special-Action Format Specifiers

In addition to the 9 letters already mentioned that specify data
types, there are 10 other letters, and 2 other characters, that
cause the debugger to perform special actions.  Following is a
complete description of all 21 non-digit characters that can
occur within a format specification:

=  causes a display, using the format of the letter following =,
   of the current memory pointer value, instead of the contents
   of the memory location.  If a letter does not follow the =,
   then W is used; i.e., the pointer is displayed as a 4-digit
   hex word.  There are two uses for this feature that come to
   mind:

   * If your address specification is symbolic, you can display
     the equivalent numeric address with =w, telling you exactly
     where the symbol is in memory.  Note that this display
     implicitly occurs at the beginning of continuation lines. If
     the format specification begins with =, then the implicit
     display is suppressed, because the same address is given
     explicitly by the L.

   * You can display the values of registers in a format other
     than hex.  For example, in the 8086 debugger you can display
     AX as a decimal number by specifying =d1,ax on one of the
     memory display lines.
                                                              6-5

@  causes the debugger to read the next byte it was going to
   display, and instead of displaying the byte, use it as a
   count, to repeat the next letter in the specification.  The
   debugger uses only the bottom 7 bits of the memory byte for
   the count.  For example, if the memory contains a length byte
   followed by that number of text characters, the text could be
   displayed by specifying @t (or @a or @c, depending on what you
   want the display to look like).  If the memory contains 05 41
   42 43 44 45, the @t would cause ABCDE to be displayed.

A  causes a display of a single ASCII byte, always using 2
   display bytes. The following table shows what is displayed for
   unusual bytes:

     range of N        display of N                Example

     00--1F            ^ followed by N+040         02 is ^B
     22                ""
     23                "#
     24                "$
     5E                "^
     7F                ^r  (r stands for rubout)
     80--9F            $ followed by N-080+040     081 is $A
     A0--FE            # followed by N-080         0B1 is #1
     FF                $r

   All other bytes cause a display of a space following by the
   appropriate ASCII byte.  The A specification is used when you
   need guaranteed display length for proper alignment of
   continuation lines; and you do not want the potential loss of
   information provided by the single-byte T specification.

B  causes a display of a single byte as a 2-digit hexadecimal
   number.  Numbers less than hex 10 have a leading 0, so that
   the display is always 2 digits.

C  causes a display of a single ASCII character, just as the A
   specification, except that normal characters (not in the
   table) display as just one byte, without the preceding space.

D  causes the display of a 16-bit word as an unsigned positive
   decimal number. There will be no leading zeros in the display;
   so the length of the display depends on the size of the
   number.

F  causes the display of a floating point number, in one of the
   three formats recognized by the 8087.  You must have a
   floating point chip (8087 or 287) installed in your computer
   for this to work.  You specify which of the three formats you
   are reading by one of three letters immediately following the
   letter F:

   FD  specifies a 4-byte Doubleword (single precision) number
   FQ  specifies an 8-byte Quadword (double precision) number
   FT  specifies a Ten-byte number-- 8087 extended precision.
                                                              6-6

G  causes a gap between the adjacent display formats, of one
   space more than there would have been without the G.  For
   adjacent string bytes, this means a space where there would
   have been none.  For other data types, this means two spaces
   where there would have been one.

J  (join) causes two adjacent data types, that would have had a
   space between them, to have no space.

L  (line) causes the display of an entire text line, using the
   C-format for each character of the line.  The debugger does
   not display the terminating carriage return; nor does it
   display the following linefeed if there is one.  (If you want
   it to, specify LUC or LUUCC instead of L.)  If a carriage
   return is not found and the display line fills, then the
   L-specifier is cut off in mid-string.  Any continuation line
   will start up at the beginning of the format specification, at
   the mid-string place in memory.

M  (mark) causes a vertical-bars symbol to be displayed.  The
   symbol will replace a separating space that would have been
   output in the position.  If you want the space, you can
   provide G on either side (or both sides) of the M.

N  (number) causes the display of an 8-bit byte as an unsigned
   positive decimal number.  There will be no leading zeroes in
   the display; so the length of the display depends on the size
   of the number.

O  causes a display of a 16-bit word as a 6-digit octal number.
   Numbers less than octal 100000 have one or more leading
   zeroes, so that the display is always 6 digits.

Q  causes a display of a single byte as a 3-digit octal number.
   Numbers less than octal 100 have one or more leading zeroes,
   so that the display is always 3 digits.

S  causes the display of an entire null-terminated string, using
   the C-format for each character of the string.  The
   terminating null (hex 00) does not generate a display (if you
   want it to, specify SUC instead of S).  If a null is not found
   and the display line fills, then the S-specifier is cut off in
   mid-string.  Any continuation line would start up at the
   beginning of the format specification, at the mid-string place
   in memory.

T  causes the display of a single ASCII text byte, with a
   guaranteed display space of one character.  The character
   displayed is the same as the second character of the A-format.
   This means that you will not be able to tell the difference
   between normal, displaying ASCII characters, and their control
   and non-ASCII counterparts.  You gain a compact
   representation, but you also gain ambiguity.

U  (unskip) causes the memory display pointer to decrement by one
   byte.   No display is generated by this command.  This command
   is useful in several contexts:
                                                              6-7

   * displaying memory in more than one format.  For example, the
     specification 8b8u2g8a gives a hex-and-ASCII side-by-side
     display, similar to that provided by many memory dump
     programs.

   * displaying memory out of its sequence order.  To test your
     understanding of the special-action letters in a format
     specification, you should convince yourself that the
     specification xb2ujbx99/ gives the same display on the
     following " continuation line as the specification w/ does.

   * displaying the count byte consumed by the @ character.  For
     example, instead of @t, you could specify nu@t, which would
     display the string count as well as the string.  If memory
     were 05 41 42 43 44 45, this would be 5 ABCDE.

W  causes a display of a 16-bit word as a 4-digit hex number.
   Numbers less than hex 1000 have one or more leading zeroes, so
   that the display is always 4 digits.

X  causes the debugger to skip over the memory byte currently
   pointed to, without displaying it.  The memory pointer is thus
   incremented.

Z  is given immediately following another format letter.  It
   causes the display to fill out the line with displays of the
   given preceding format; but instead of starting with the given
   address, the debugger starts with a lower address, and
   displays memory up to but not including the given address.

   The most common usage of Z is to display the memory just
   output by a moving output pointer.  For example, in the 8086
   debugger, you could specify bz,es,di to display the hex bytes
   most recently output by the STOSB instruction.

   Note that Z makes sense only in a limited number of contexts.
   You will almost certainly want to use Z only as the second
   letter of a two-letter specification, as in the example above.
   I further recommend that you use a format letter that
   generates a fixed length display; i.e., B,W,Q,O,T, or C.  If
   you use a variable length display (N,D, or A), the debugger
   will be as pessimistic as possible about the number of display
   characters needed, so that the display will likely terminate
   before the end of the line.

   A continuation of a Z-line will produce the same output as the
   original line.  If you want to continue beyond the address
   given, repeat the specification without the Z.
                                                              6-8

   I now discuss what happens if you use Z in other contexts.
   Unless your taste runs to the bizarre, you should skip this
   paragraph.  Since Z fills out a line, there should be no
   specifiers after Z: they would be ignored.  Also note that Z
   has an effect only on the single letter that precedes it.  If
   you precede Z with more than one letter, you will get a
   confusing effect: the display would start out forward from the
   address, then it would retreat when it got to Z's preceding
   letter.  The Z-array would run up to the address reached
   before, which is forward from the address you specified.


The Data Memory Window

You may cause the switchable window in the upper right quadrant
of the screen to display 14 lines of memory, continuing from the
last of the lines you specified within the 6-line memory area. To
do this, you:

1. Type a format-and-address specification on one of the numbered
   memory lines, as previously described in this chapter.  For
   example, to display Bytes at location DS:0100, type 6b,ds,0100
   followed by the ENTER key.

2. If you have already selected the memory window, you'll
   automatically have a continuation of the memory line you just
   specified, into the upper right quadrant of the screen.  If
   not, you may select the window by pressing either the ctrl-N
   or ctrl-P keys.

Once you have set up a 14-line window, you may page through
memory with the ctrl-N (Next memory page) and ctrl-P (Previous
memory page) keys, described in Chapter 4.

If, after having pressed ctrl-N or ctrl-P several times, you wish
to return to the first window continuing from the address you
specified, you may do so by typing the digit (1 to 6) of the last
specification line, followed immediately by the ESC key to
preserve the specification settings.  The memory window will be
reset to its continuation value.  For example, if your
specification was on line 6, you type 6 followed immediately by
the ESC key.

If you want your 14-line memory window to start at a certain
address instead of continuing from a 1-line display, you can
separate the format and the address with a slash instead of a
comma.  For example, if you want Words at location ES:0, type 6
followed by w/es,0 followed by the ENTER key.