hello everyone,

I've been reading tutorials for several of the assemblers out there, and I can now say that I understand the fundamentals and basics well. I fully comprehend hex and binary numbers and all the basic instructions. I've had a fun time learning, but I still have a few questions.

1. Could someone please explain what "format PE GUI 4.0 entry start" does? I searched the forums and found that its needed when you're programming GUI apps, but what exactly does the instruction itself do?

2. Why is the syntax for starting a program and declaring data different? For example, i've seen "section .code" but at other times only ".code". I've seen the same for declaring data. Do you use one in certain cases or how does that work?

3. What do the words "readable writable executable" in the sections do? Sort of a follow up to question #2. I'm confused as to what they actually mean and do.

4. Could someone explain the difference between "proc" and a macro? Is proc just a macro, and if so, why not just use a macro instead of a proc. I know there are some differences between the two and some clarification would help.

I have some more questions, but I think thats enough for now.
Also, I just wanted to say how great its been to read some of the other posts and the helpful responses that this forum community gives. People like vid and locodelAssembly and others have made the learning process much smoother.

P.S. I really liked your tutorial vid. But I was only able to find up to chapter 9 on macros. Do you have anymore and could you post a link? I tried searching through the decard site, but its just full of advertisements. Maybe i'm missing something.

thanks for the help

format PE console ;Allocates a console for the program when it starts
GUI 4.0 is used when making windows programs, but I have never used it before.

entry --- simply points to the label where to start the program, such as
entry BeginMyProgram which is needed in the file header upon startup

section '.code' and .code compile the same, it creates a section in the file for the data, in this case code. .text is used interchangeably.

section '.code' readable writable executable
if you disassemble a file header you will see this information, just sets what I like to call the 'security' of each section, sending errors when read-only data is written to, ect..

I have never used macros or proc, but I do know that macros are just another way of saying "do this when this is typed". Asksomeone else about that one please lol. proc are just a high-level aspect of fasm to make it a little more user-friendly, again maybe someone next can ellaborate.

Please post as many questions as you have, or just make them into a text file and attach them here, I'm sure many people would like to send you answers to them by the dozens. Have fun learning asm!

1 and 3 - see FASM documentation

2 - ".code" is just a helper macro, that is in "win32ax.inc"

4 - If you use macro 10 times, then it is as if you wrote entire macro body 10 times. If you call procedure 10 times, then it's still just 10 call instructions, and one time body of procedure.

NO (not proc=macro). But you can keep them both out for the beginning. Macros get expanded when compiling, subroutines no. "proc" IIRC comes from MASM and is in FASM implemented using macros, but results in a sub (I don't use proc).

> what "format PE GUI 4.0 entry start" does?

Check Tomasz's (with PE GUI) and my ( http://board.flatassembler.net/topic.php?t=6735 , without PE GUI) examples.

thanks a lot everyone...it definitely helped clear things out....sometimes(especially when first learning something) the documentation can seem like a bunch of technical jargon. Its always good to have it explained in normal terms.

Vid: Did you read my last question regarding the tutorials. Maybe you or anyone else who knows can help me find the rest

I never really continued that tutorial, but first 9 chapters should be more/less still valid. I don't think I ever will continue them...