Gullele's Corner

Here is another example of assembly code that would square a number:

#Simple square function in assembly language for x86 architecture
.code32 #tell the assembler we are using 32bit

.section .data #we don't have nothing in the data section
.section .text

.globl _start
_start:

    push $9 #fixed value of 9
    # The call updates the eip - instruction pointer
    call square 

    mov %eax, %ebx #the return value would be on register %eax, so pass it on %ebx
    mov $1, %eax #system call for exit on eax register - that would be 1
    int $0x80 #interupt

.type square, @function
square:
    mov 4(%esp), %eax #read the value to square basing from the stack pointer (esp)
    imul %eax, %eax # umm.. whatelse? multiply the value and store it on eax
    ret #return the value 

do the following from the command line to run the code

$ gcc -m32 -nostartfiles -o square square.s 
$ ./square 
$ echo $?

Shall produce 81 on the command prompt