Maps in Assembly Language

Here’s the translation of the Go “Maps” example to Assembly Language, formatted in Markdown suitable for Hugo:

section .data
    map_msg db "map: ", 0
    v1_msg db "v1: ", 0
    v3_msg db "v3: ", 0
    len_msg db "len: ", 0
    prs_msg db "prs: ", 0
    k1 db "k1", 0
    k2 db "k2", 0
    k3 db "k3", 0
    foo db "foo", 0
    bar db "bar", 0

section .bss
    map resb 100    ; Reserve space for our "map"

section .text
    global _start

_start:
    ; Initialize our "map"
    mov byte [map], 0

    ; Set key/value pairs
    mov al, 7
    mov [map + 'k' - 'a'], al
    mov al, 13
    mov [map + 'k' - 'a' + 1], al

    ; Print the map
    mov eax, 4
    mov ebx, 1
    mov ecx, map_msg
    mov edx, 5
    int 0x80
    call print_map

    ; Get a value for a key
    mov al, [map + 'k' - 'a']
    add al, '0'
    mov [v1_msg + 4], al
    mov eax, 4
    mov ebx, 1
    mov ecx, v1_msg
    mov edx, 5
    int 0x80

    ; Try to get a non-existent key
    mov al, [map + 'k' - 'a' + 2]
    add al, '0'
    mov [v3_msg + 4], al
    mov eax, 4
    mov ebx, 1
    mov ecx, v3_msg
    mov edx, 5
    int 0x80

    ; Print the length of the map
    mov al, 2
    add al, '0'
    mov [len_msg + 5], al
    mov eax, 4
    mov ebx, 1
    mov ecx, len_msg
    mov edx, 6
    int 0x80

    ; Delete a key/value pair
    mov byte [map + 'k' - 'a' + 1], 0

    ; Print the map again
    mov eax, 4
    mov ebx, 1
    mov ecx, map_msg
    mov edx, 5
    int 0x80
    call print_map

    ; Clear the map
    mov ecx, 26
    xor eax, eax
    mov edi, map
    rep stosb

    ; Print the empty map
    mov eax, 4
    mov ebx, 1
    mov ecx, map_msg
    mov edx, 5
    int 0x80
    call print_map

    ; Check if a key exists
    mov al, [map + 'k' - 'a' + 1]
    cmp al, 0
    sete al
    add al, '0'
    mov [prs_msg + 5], al
    mov eax, 4
    mov ebx, 1
    mov ecx, prs_msg
    mov edx, 6
    int 0x80

    ; Exit the program
    mov eax, 1
    xor ebx, ebx
    int 0x80

print_map:
    ; This is a simplified version of printing the map
    mov eax, 4
    mov ebx, 1
    mov ecx, map
    mov edx, 26
    int 0x80
    ret

This Assembly Language code attempts to replicate the functionality of the Go Maps example. However, it’s important to note that Assembly Language doesn’t have built-in data structures like maps. This example uses a very simplified representation of a map, where each letter of the alphabet corresponds to an index in a 26-byte array.

The code demonstrates:

Creating an “empty map” by reserving space in memory.
Setting key/value pairs by storing values at specific memory locations.
Retrieving values for keys by accessing specific memory locations.
Deleting a key/value pair by setting the value to 0.
Clearing the entire map by setting all values to 0.
Checking if a key exists by comparing its value to 0.

This is a very basic and limited implementation. In real-world assembly programming, you would typically use more complex data structures and memory management to implement map-like functionality.

The code uses Linux system calls for input/output operations. To run this program, you would need to assemble it into an object file, link it, and then execute the resulting binary on a Linux system.

$ nasm -f elf64 maps.asm
$ ld -o maps maps.o
$ ./maps

Note that this is a significantly simplified version and doesn’t fully replicate all the features of Go’s maps. Assembly language is much lower level and doesn’t provide such high-level abstractions out of the box.

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Maps in Assembly Language