I am trying to create a helloworld program using only masm and not masm32 libs. Here is the code snippet:
.386
.model flat, stdcall
option casemap :none
extrn MessageBox : PROC
extrn ExitProcess : PROC
.data
HelloWorld db "Hello There!", 0
.code
start:
lea eax, HelloWorld
mov ebx, 0
push ebx
push eax
push eax
push ebx
call MessageBox
push ebx
call ExitProcess
end start
I am able to assemble this using masm:
c:\masm32\code>ml /c /coff demo.asm
Microsoft (R) Macro Assembler Version 9.00.21022.08
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Assembling: demo.asm
However, I am unable to link it:
c:\masm32\code>link /subsystem:windows /defaultlib:kernel32.lib /defaultlib:user
32.lib demo.obj
Microsoft (R) Incremental Linker Version 9.00.21022.08
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
demo.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol _MessageBox
demo.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol _ExitProcess
demo.exe : fatal error LNK1120: 2 unresolved externals
I am including the libs during linking, so not sure why it still says unresolved symbols?
UPDATE:
c:\masm32\code>link /subsystem:windows /defaultlib:kernel32.lib /defaultlib:user
32.lib demo.obj
Microsoft (R) Incremental Linker Version 9.00.21022.08
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
demo.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol _MessageBox@16
demo.exe : fatal error LNK1120: 1 unresolved externals
UPDATE 2: Final working code!
.386
.model flat, stdcall
option casemap :none
extrn MessageBoxA@16 : PROC
extrn ExitProcess@4 : PROC
.data
HelloWorld db "Hello There!", 0
.code
start:
lea eax, HelloWorld
mov ebx, 0
push ebx
push eax
push eax
push ebx
call MessageBoxA@16
push ebx
call ExitProcess@4
end start
The correct function names are MessageBoxA@16
and ExitProcess@4
.
Almost all Win32 API functions are stdcall, so their names are decorated with an @
sign, followed by the number of bytes taken up by their parameters.
Additionally, when a Win32 function takes a string, there are two variants: one that takes an ANSI string (name ends in A
) and one that takes a Unicode string (name ends in W
). You're supplying an ANSI string, so you want the A
version.
When you're not programming in assembly the compiler takes care of these points for you.