World of Shareware - Software Farm 2/wosw_2.zip/wosw_2/CPROG/ASMEDIT.ZIP/ASMED1.DOC

Text File | 1989-04-24 | 8KB | 169 lines

ASMED (C) 1989 - The Integrated Assembly Language Editor



Thank you for trying ASMED. First, let me tell you what it does:

ASMED is a Programmer's Editor that is especially suited to Assembly
Language. If you're using MASM or TASM or a similar assembler, you can
edit your programs and assemble them right from the Editor. If errors
are found during assembly, ASMED will flag them and the cursor will be
positioned on the line(s) with the error(s). You can then use function
keys to jump to the next/previous errors. This operates much like Turbo
C for those of you who have used the integrated environment. The Editor
itself operates exactly like the Borland Editors, all the same editing
commands are supported (TPascal, TC, Prolog, ETC.)

BACKGROUND: The whole idea behind ASMED is to give you the same
effectiveness the integrated compiler/editors give you. It is much
easier and faster to write code and debug when the editor catches your
errors and highlights them than to have to keep loading and unloading
editors and assemblers. I wrote ASMED because I'm used to using the
great Borland products with integrated environments, and when TASM came
out, there was no editor to accompany it. Well, this and the fact that
I couldn't afford a commercial editor that does the same thing. ASMED
is especially useful to people learning to program in assembly (who
isn't, right?) because you can view your error messages on-screen while
editing. ASMED is a simple program by nature, it is not fancy, and there
is not alot of error checking performed. It does work nicely though.
You might say it's in a beta test state right now...........I wanted
to make it as small as possible to free up memory when assembling. It
uses only about 45k so you should be able to assemble very large
programs. Also included is an ASCII and Key Scan Code chart for
reference. You should find ASMED useful until Borland comes out with a
full-blown integrated environment for their assembler products. If not,
I'll keep updating ASMED.


USER POLICY: Basically, there is no user policy, if you find ASMED
useful, use it! You do not have to send in any money (but if you want
to, go ahead.) I would ask that you send me your comments though. If
there's any sort of response I will implement the changes you desire.


OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS: Since most people with access to this file
already know how the Borland Turbo xxxxx editors work, I won't bother
to explain the editing commands, they're all there though. In addition
to the edit commands, there are 8 functions (F1-F8) that can be used.
These are reflected in the top and bottom status lines of the editor
window.

F1 - HELP (N/A AT THIS TIME, SORRY)
F2 - SAVE CURRENT FILE
F3 - LOAD A NEW FILE
F4 - DOS SHELL (TO LINK, RUN ???)
F5 - NEXT ERROR - JUMP TO NEXT ERROR AND HIGHLIGHT WITH MESSAGE
F6 - PREVIOUS ERROR - SAME AS ABOVE WITH PREVIOUS ERRORS
F7 - CHARTS - VIEW ASCII CODES AND KEY SCAN VALUES IN WINDOW
F8 - ASSEMBLE - THIS WILL CALL YOUR ASSEMBLER AND ASSEMBLE YOUR CODE

Take note that you must have an assembler to assemble programs! This is
not a language but a connection to an assembler product.

INSTALLING ASMED: You should take a couple of steps to ensure that
ASMED can find your assembler and linker. No, there isn't an
extravagant install program, just a simple config file that contains
the path names where your assembler files reside, and an error flag
character used to catch errors. Explanation is this: ASMED reads the
config file (if it exists) and uses the paths to run the assembler, if
you have your "PATH= " set, or use any memres path programs, you won't
even need to bother with this. The config file is as follows:

A plain ascii file, 5 lines long in this format -

line 1 - assembler name (TASM, MASM, etc.)
line 2 - linker name (LINK, TLINK, etc.)
line 3 - error flag. This is the character(s) that the assembler
produces when it finds an error. For TASM, it is the * character, for
MASM, it is the ( character. You get this information by looking at the
output the assembler produces when it finds an error. As an example,
consider this TASM example session assembling the file "test.asm":
----------------------------------------------------------------------
C:TASM>TASM TEST.ASM

Turbo Assembler  Version 1.0   (c) 1988 Borland International

Assembling file: \TASM\TEST.ASM

**Error** (31) open procedure xxxx

Error messages: 1
Warning messages: None
Remaining Memory: 475k
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
See the * characters surrounding the "Error" message? That is all ASMED
needs to find the error messages and line numbers. Although the *'s
occur in multiples of two, only one is needed by ASMED to distinguish
an error. In MASM, the errors look more like: ERROR: (31) 127:xxxxx
And the "(" character is enough. At any rate, you have up to 3
characters you can use for this depending on your particular assembler.
But make sure this character ONLY appears on lines with errors. If
you're using TASM, just use the *.

line 4 - assembler path (\tasm, etc.)
line 5 - linker path (\tasm\link, etc.)
line 6 - ASMED path (\Editor, etc.)

When you put it all together, a config file might look like this:

\TASM
\TASM
*
\ASSEMBLY
\LINK
\EDITOR

If you want to use the current directory, just use a blank line. This
is probably a bit confusing, the sole purpose of the config file is to
let ASMED know where to find your assembler files. If you have pathing
setup (ie:PATH=C:\TASM;C:\EDITOR...), you don't have to worry about
this. The config file must be named "ASMED.CNF" and can reside in any
directory. You can use any ascii editor to change the file, even ASMED.
Remember, if you botch up this file, ASMED won't be able to find the
right files needed to work properly, but will still be a good editor.
If you need help, leave me a message on CIS (72207, 247.)

Next, there are up to two (2) command line parameters you can send
while starting ASMED. 1) filename, 2) subdir that the ASMED.CNF file is
in. The reasoning behind this is simple, so you can run ASMED from
anywhere on your hard drive and still load the config file, even if
it's in yet another subdir. Say you have pathing set up so you can run
ASMED from anywhere, well, the config file might not be in the
directory you type "ASMED" from so you can specify a path. Example:

ASMED test /\bin

This will run ASMED, load the file TEST.ASM, and look for the config
file in the \bin directory. The config parameter must start with a
slash (/) and include the full pathname. You know you're doing it right
when you get the little tree symbol (/\) The parameters can be in any
order (filename path or path filename.) If you omit a filename, you
will be prompted to enter a file to edit. If you omit the config path,
ASMED will look in the default directory. If no config file exists,
defaults for TASM go into effect.

Once you load the editor, everything is pretty cut-and-dried. Look at
the top and bottom lines for function key instructions, everything else
is just like the turbo editors, using the ctrl key command sequences
(ie:ctrl-k-p to print a block.) <ESC> will exit the program.

NOTE: After you assemble, if there were errors, they will be
highlighted along with the assembler error message, displayed on line
two, and the cursor will be on the actual line of your code where the
error took place. ALL messages are displayed on line 2 or line 24. If
you can't figure out what's going on, check these lines! Also, if there
is a problem when you try and assemble, look at line 24, if it says
"bad command or filename" then chances are your assembler was not
found.

I thinks that's it. If there's anyone out there that wants to learn
assembly, there's no excuses not to now right?

GOOD LUCK, JOE



                          CHICAGO SOFTWARE
                          1805 BRUNETTI WAY
                          SPARKS, NV 89431
                          CIS 72207, 247