Which variable size to use (db, dw, dd) with x86 assembly?

Question

I am a beginner to assembly and I don't know what all the db, dw, dd, things mean. I have tried to write this little script that does 1+1, stores it in a variable and then displays the result. Here is my code so far:

.386
.model flat, stdcall 
option casemap :none
include \masm32\include\windows.inc
include \masm32\include\kernel32.inc
include \masm32\include\masm32.inc
includelib \masm32\lib\kernel32.lib
includelib \masm32\lib\masm32.lib
.data
num db ? ; set variable . Here is where I don't know what data type to use.
.code
start:
mov eax, 1               ; add 1 to eax register
mov ebx, 1               ; add 1 to ebx register
add eax, ebx             ; add registers eax and ebx
push eax                 ; push eax into the stack
pop num                  ; pop eax into the variable num (when I tried it, it gave me an error, i think  thats because of the data type)
invoke StdOut, addr num  ; display num on the console.
invoke ExitProcess       ; exit
end start

I need to understand what the db, dw, dd things mean and how they affect variable setting and combining and that sort of thing.

Thanks in advance, Progrmr

Answer 1

Quick review,

• DB - Define Byte. 8 bits
• DW - Define Word. Generally 2 bytes on a typical x86 32-bit system
• DD - Define double word. Generally 4 bytes on a typical x86 32-bit system

From x86 assembly tutorial,

The pop instruction removes the 4-byte data element from the top of the hardware-supported stack into the specified operand (i.e. register or memory location). It first moves the 4 bytes located at memory location [SP] into the specified register or memory location, and then increments SP by 4.

Your num is 1 byte. Try declaring it with DD so that it becomes 4 bytes and matches with pop semantics.