% Inline Assembly
For extremely low-level manipulations and performance reasons, one
might wish to control the CPU directly. Rust supports using inline
assembly to do this via the asm!
macro.
asm!(assembly template
: output operands
: input operands
: clobbers
: options
);
Any use of asm
is feature gated (requires #![feature(asm)]
on the
crate to allow) and of course requires an unsafe
block.
Note: the examples here are given in x86/x86-64 assembly, but all platforms are supported.
Assembly template
The assembly template
is the only required parameter and must be a
literal string (i.e. ""
)
#![feature(asm)]
#[cfg(any(target_arch = "x86", target_arch = "x86_64"))]
fn foo() {
unsafe {
asm!("NOP");
}
}
// Other platforms:
#[cfg(not(any(target_arch = "x86", target_arch = "x86_64")))]
fn foo() { /* ... */ }
fn main() {
// ...
foo();
// ...
}
(The feature(asm)
and #[cfg]
s are omitted from now on.)
Output operands, input operands, clobbers and options are all optional
but you must add the right number of :
if you skip them:
# #![feature(asm)]
# #[cfg(any(target_arch = "x86", target_arch = "x86_64"))]
# fn main() { unsafe {
asm!("xor %eax, %eax"
:
:
: "eax"
);
# } }
# #[cfg(not(any(target_arch = "x86", target_arch = "x86_64")))]
# fn main() {}
Whitespace also doesn't matter:
# #![feature(asm)]
# #[cfg(any(target_arch = "x86", target_arch = "x86_64"))]
# fn main() { unsafe {
asm!("xor %eax, %eax" ::: "eax");
# } }
# #[cfg(not(any(target_arch = "x86", target_arch = "x86_64")))]
# fn main() {}
Operands
Input and output operands follow the same format: :
"constraints1"(expr1), "constraints2"(expr2), ..."
. Output operand
expressions must be mutable lvalues, or not yet assigned:
# #![feature(asm)]
# #[cfg(any(target_arch = "x86", target_arch = "x86_64"))]
fn add(a: i32, b: i32) -> i32 {
let c: i32;
unsafe {
asm!("add $2, $0"
: "=r"(c)
: "0"(a), "r"(b)
);
}
c
}
# #[cfg(not(any(target_arch = "x86", target_arch = "x86_64")))]
# fn add(a: i32, b: i32) -> i32 { a + b }
fn main() {
assert_eq!(add(3, 14159), 14162)
}
If you would like to use real operands in this position, however,
you are required to put curly braces {}
around the register that
you want, and you are required to put the specific size of the
operand. This is useful for very low level programming, where
which register you use is important:
# #![feature(asm)]
# #[cfg(any(target_arch = "x86", target_arch = "x86_64"))]
# unsafe fn read_byte_in(port: u16) -> u8 {
let result: u8;
asm!("in %dx, %al" : "={al}"(result) : "{dx}"(port));
result
# }
Clobbers
Some instructions modify registers which might otherwise have held different values so we use the clobbers list to indicate to the compiler not to assume any values loaded into those registers will stay valid.
# #![feature(asm)]
# #[cfg(any(target_arch = "x86", target_arch = "x86_64"))]
# fn main() { unsafe {
// Put the value 0x200 in eax:
asm!("mov $$0x200, %eax" : /* no outputs */ : /* no inputs */ : "eax");
# } }
# #[cfg(not(any(target_arch = "x86", target_arch = "x86_64")))]
# fn main() {}
Input and output registers need not be listed since that information is already communicated by the given constraints. Otherwise, any other registers used either implicitly or explicitly should be listed.
If the assembly changes the condition code register cc
should be
specified as one of the clobbers. Similarly, if the assembly modifies
memory, memory
should also be specified.
Options
The last section, options
is specific to Rust. The format is comma
separated literal strings (i.e. :"foo", "bar", "baz"
). It's used to
specify some extra info about the inline assembly:
Current valid options are:
- volatile - specifying this is analogous to
__asm__ __volatile__ (...)
in gcc/clang. - alignstack - certain instructions expect the stack to be aligned a certain way (i.e. SSE) and specifying this indicates to the compiler to insert its usual stack alignment code
- intel - use intel syntax instead of the default AT&T.
# #![feature(asm)]
# #[cfg(any(target_arch = "x86", target_arch = "x86_64"))]
# fn main() {
let result: i32;
unsafe {
asm!("mov eax, 2" : "={eax}"(result) : : : "intel")
}
println!("eax is currently {}", result);
# }
# #[cfg(not(any(target_arch = "x86", target_arch = "x86_64")))]
# fn main() {}
More Information
The current implementation of the asm!
macro is a direct binding to LLVM's
inline assembler expressions, so be sure to check out their
documentation as well for more information about clobbers,
constraints, etc.