Article ID: 47122
Article Last Modified on 11/21/2006
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft QuickBasic 4.0, when used with:
- Microsoft MS-DOS 6.22 Standard Edition
- Microsoft QuickBASIC 4.0b, when used with:
- Microsoft MS-DOS 6.22 Standard Edition
- Microsoft QuickBasic 4.5 for MS-DOS, when used with:
- Microsoft MS-DOS 6.22 Standard Edition
- Microsoft BASIC Compiler 6.0
- Microsoft BASIC Compiler 6.0b
- Microsoft BASIC Professional Development System 7.0
- Microsoft BASIC Professional Development System 7.1
This article was previously published under Q47122
SUMMARY
The program shown below demonstrates how to pass a variable-length string by far reference to an assembly language routine.
This information applies to QuickBasic versions 4.00, 4.00b, and 4.50, to Microsoft Basic Compiler versions 6.00 and 6.00b for MS-DOS and MS OS/2, and to near variable-length strings in Microsoft Basic Professional Development System (PDS) versions 7.00 and 7.10 for MS-DOS and MS OS/2.
MORE INFORMATION
The following program is PSTRING.BAS, which passes a string to an assembly language routine using the VARSEG and SADD functions. SADD gives the actual address of the string, whereas VARPTR gives the address of the string descriptor.
This example cannot be used in Basic PDS 7.00 or 7.10 with far strings (BC /Fs) or with QBX.EXE (which always uses far strings). For more information about far strings, see Chapter 13 of "Microsoft Basic 7.0: Programmer's Guide" for versions 7.00 and 7.10.
DECLARE SUB PSTRING(BYVAL STRSEG AS INTEGER, BYVAL STROFF AS INTEGER)
A$ = "Hello World"
PRINT "Before call: ";
PRINT A$
CALL PSTRING(VARSEG(A$), SADD(A$))
PRINT "After call : ";
PRINT A$
The following separately compiled routine is PSTR.ASM:
; The following handy .MODEL MEDIUM,Basic directive is found in MASM
; 5.10 but not in earlier versions:
.MODEL MEDIUM, Basic
.CODE
pstring PROC sseg:WORD, soff:WORD
push bx ; save bx register, dx, and es
push dx
push es
mov ax, sseg ; get segment of string
mov es, ax ; put into segment register
mov bx, soff
; 65 is ASCII value for letter 'A'.
mov BYTE PTR es:[bx], 65 ; Move the 'A' to the first character
; in the string.
pop es
pop dx
pop bx ; restore (pop) es, dx, and bx
ret
pstring ENDP
end
Compile and link the program as follows:
BC PSTRING;
MASM PSTR;
LINK PSTRING PSTR;
When run, PSTRING should print the following:
Before call: Hello World
After call : Aello World
Additional query words: QuickBas BasicCom
Keywords: KB47122
