A common type of UNIX® application is a filter—a program that reads data from the stdin, processes it somehow, then writes the result to stdout.

In this chapter, we shall develop a simple filter, and learn how to read from stdin and write to stdout. This filter will convert each byte of its input into a hexadecimal number followed by a blank space.

%include	'system.inc'

section	.data
hex	db	'0123456789ABCDEF'
buffer	db	0, 0, ' '

section	.text
global	_start
_start:
	; read a byte from stdin
	push	dword 1
	push	dword buffer
	push	dword stdin
	sys.read
	add	esp, byte 12
	or	eax, eax
	je	.done

	; convert it to hex
	movzx	eax, byte [buffer]
	mov	edx, eax
	shr	dl, 4
	mov	dl, [hex+edx]
	mov	[buffer], dl
	and	al, 0Fh
	mov	al, [hex+eax]
	mov	[buffer+1], al

	; print it
	push	dword 3
	push	dword buffer
	push	dword stdout
	sys.write
	add	esp, byte 12
	jmp	short _start

.done:
	push	dword 0
	sys.exit

In the data section we create an array called hex. It contains the 16 hexadecimal digits in ascending order. The array is followed by a buffer which we will use for both input and output. The first two bytes of the buffer are initially set to 0. This is where we will write the two hexadecimal digits (the first byte also is where we will read the input). The third byte is a space.

The code section consists of four parts: Reading the byte, converting it to a hexadecimal number, writing the result, and eventually exiting the program.

To read the byte, we ask the system to read one byte from stdin, and store it in the first byte of the buffer. The system returns the number of bytes read in EAX. This will be 1 while data is coming, or 0, when no more input data is available. Therefore, we check the value of EAX. If it is 0, we jump to .done, otherwise we continue.

The hexadecimal conversion reads the byte from the buffer into EAX, or actually just AL, while clearing the remaining bits of EAX to zeros. We also copy the byte to EDX because we need to convert the upper four bits (nibble) separately from the lower four bits. We store the result in the first two bytes of the buffer.

Next, we ask the system to write the three bytes of the buffer, i.e., the two hexadecimal digits and the blank space, to stdout. We then jump back to the beginning of the program and process the next byte.

Once there is no more input left, we ask the system to exit our program, returning a zero, which is the traditional value meaning the program was successful.

Go ahead, and save the code in a file named hex.asm, then type the following (the ^D means press the control key and type D while holding the control key down):

% nasm -f elf hex.asm
% ld -s -o hex hex.o
% ./hex
Hello, World!
48 65 6C 6C 6F 2C 20 57 6F 72 6C 64 21 0A Here I come!
48 65 72 65 20 49 20 63 6F 6D 65 21 0A ^D %

Can we improve this? Well, for one, it is a bit confusing because once we have converted a line of text, our input no longer starts at the beginning of the line. We can modify it to print a new line instead of a space after each 0A:

%include	'system.inc'

section	.data
hex	db	'0123456789ABCDEF'
buffer	db	0, 0, ' '

section	.text
global	_start
_start:
	mov	cl, ' '

.loop:
	; read a byte from stdin
	push	dword 1
	push	dword buffer
	push	dword stdin
	sys.read
	add	esp, byte 12
	or	eax, eax
	je	.done

	; convert it to hex
	movzx	eax, byte [buffer]
	mov	[buffer+2], cl
	cmp	al, 0Ah
	jne	.hex
	mov	[buffer+2], al

.hex:
	mov	edx, eax
	shr	dl, 4
	mov	dl, [hex+edx]
	mov	[buffer], dl
	and	al, 0Fh
	mov	al, [hex+eax]
	mov	[buffer+1], al

	; print it
	push	dword 3
	push	dword buffer
	push	dword stdout
	sys.write
	add	esp, byte 12
	jmp	short .loop

.done:
	push	dword 0
	sys.exit

We have stored the space in the CL register. We can do this safely because, unlike Microsoft® Windows®, UNIX® system calls do not modify the value of any register they do not use to return a value in.

That means we only need to set CL once. We have, therefore, added a new label .loop and jump to it for the next byte instead of jumping at _start. We have also added the .hex label so we can either have a blank space or a new line as the third byte of the buffer.

Once you have changed hex.asm to reflect these changes, type:

% nasm -f elf hex.asm
% ld -s -o hex hex.o
% ./hex
Hello, World!
48 65 6C 6C 6F 2C 20 57 6F 72 6C 64 21 0A
Here I come!
48 65 72 65 20 49 20 63 6F 6D 65 21 0A
^D %

That looks better. But this code is quite inefficient! We are making a system call for every single byte twice (once to read it, another time to write the output).