   Yet another assembly question =/
  I have a bswap function on the critical path in my application and I'm working on a way to improve it. Moving to assembly version improved function execution speed by 50% right now (in clocks), but there are still things to do...There is a 32 bit version and 64 bit version of bswap in my app...Things are realy simple with 32 bit one, as return value is expected in eax and thats about it, but I have some doubts about bswap64.From what I managed to deduce from assembly output, __int64 is returned in edx:eax, and application seems to work fine if I do that, but I'm not sure it wont crash under some weird switches/circumstainces... Is the return edx:eax safe? There seems to be no info on web about 64 bit return values...The second thing I'm currently looking at is to opt out ebp and other registry saving restoring ops.The function right now is - __cdecl __int64 f(__int64); (I guess cdecl, as project is compiled as C project with inline assembly)There is a lot of registry pushing poping generated by VS03 and I think that's not needed at all.I found that __declspec(naked) might do the job, but what about calling function from C app and C++ app later, wont it break anything later on?Currently full function code is:unsigned __int64 bswap64(unsigned __int64 num){__asm{mov edx, dword ptr[num]mov eax, dword ptr[num+0x4]bswap eaxbswap edx}}What should I take into account if I migrate to __declspec(naked)?do I return from function with - ret 0and where should I expect input variable - registers, stack? If stack, can I just address it with esp rather than ebp?From what I've heard eax, ecx and edx doesn't need to be preserved in function, all other variables should be, am I right?And are there any dangers if I decide to recompile the code as C++ code later on?I know i'm asking a lot of questions, but I really tried googling and I couldn't find answers to most of them...   
Quote:Original post by _Madman_From what I managed to deduce from assembly output, __int64 is returned in edx:eax, and application seems to work fine if I do that, but I'm not sure it wont crash under some weird switches/circumstainces... Is the return edx:eax safe? There seems to be no info on web about 64 bit return values...Yes. You'll find the info if you dig hard enough. "An 8-byte integer is typically returned in the EDX:EAX register pair, with EDX containing the high 32 bits." [1]Quote:Original post by _Madman_I found that __declspec(naked) might do the job, but what about calling function from C app and C++ app later, wont it break anything later on?Not necessarily. Quote:Original post by _Madman_What should I take into account if I migrate to __declspec(naked)?In general with naked functions you'll have to deal with stack management and preserving the non-clobberable registers. Quote:Original post by _Madman_do I return from function with - ret 0For your function as _cdecl, a simple 'ret' should do. Quote:Original post by _Madman_and where should I expect input variable - registers, stack? If stack, can I just address it with esp rather than ebp?For cdecl and stdcall, the stack. For fastcall and thiscall registers and stack. For cdecl and stdcall you can address the arguments using esp, just remember that stacks grow downwards so you expand them by subtracting and contract them by adding.  Quote:Original post by _Madman_From what I've heard eax, ecx and edx doesn't need to be preserved in function, all other variables should be, am I right?Other registers, yes. This varies from compiler to compiler, but generally yes. Quote:Original post by _Madman_And are there any dangers if I decide to recompile the code as C++ code later on?Yes. Ecx is often used in C++ code to pass the "this" variable to method calls. Quote:Original post by _Madman_I know i'm asking a lot of questions, but I really tried googling and I couldn't find answers to most of them...Just Enough Assembly Language to Get By Part 1Just Enough Assembly Language to Get By Part 2X86 Assembly WikibookThe history of calling conventions, part 3How can a program survive a corrupted stack?IA-32 Intel® Architecture Software Developer's Manual, Volumes 1, 2A, 2B, 3A and 3B