Amiga Assembly extension for Visual Studio Code

[gigabates]

Originally Posted by hop

Is it possible to use environment variables in vasm args?

Just reading up on this in the vscode docs:
Why aren't variables in tasks.json being resolved
"only command, args, and options support variable substitution".

In this case the property is 'vasm.args', so it won't automatically be expanded. I'd suspect that there might be an API that the extension could use to add support though. I'll look into this.

[hop]

Well spotted thanks. I hope there is a straightforward solution.

[gigabates]

Originally Posted by hop

Well spotted thanks. I hope there is a straightforward solution.

I've opened a pull request to add this feature so hopefully it will be available soon.

[prb28]

Originally Posted by gigabates

I've opened a pull request to add this feature so hopefully it will be available soon.

@gigabates Thanks for the PR.
The 1.3.4 pre-release is done it should be available in the next hour on the market place.

[hop]

I've updated to the latest pre-release build. It didn't work at first, but started working once I restarted the IDE. At first it complained about binaries, so I forced a download and then it started working.

Many thanks this is great.

It would be great if env vars could be used in the vlink exefilename field to specify an absoute path for the output. This would allow all executables in a workspaced to build to a common (shared) build folder. My current working solution is to use relative paths:

"exefilename": "../../../../../build/copperbars"

I would like to be able to do something like this:

"exefilename": "${env:BUILD}/copperbars",

Where

Executing task: echo workspaceFolder=C:\GitHub\hop\amiga-assembly\target\samples\hardware\copper\copperbars  env:INCLUDE=C:\GitHub\hop\amiga-assembly\target\include env:Build=C:\GitHub\hop\amiga-assembly\target\build <

workspaceFolder=C:\GitHub\hop\amiga-assembly\target\samples\hardware\copper\copperbars
env:INCLUDE=C:\GitHub\hop\amiga-assembly\target\include
env:Build=C:\GitHub\hop\amiga-assembly\target\build

However the macro is not expanded in this field, so this results in:

Linking_________________________________________
c:\Users\hop\AppData\Roaming\Code\User\globalStorage\prb28.amiga-assembly\downloads\vscode-amiga-assembly-binaries-@-1.3.4\vscode-amiga-assembly-binaries-windows_x64/vlink -bamigahunk -Bstatic -o c:\GitHub\hop\amiga-assembly\target\samples\hardware\copper\copperbars\build\${env:BUILD}\copperbars c:\GitHub\hop\amiga-assembly\target\samples\hardware\copper\copperbars\build\copperbars.o
Error 29: Can't create output file c:\GitHub\hop\amiga-assembly\target\samples\hardware\copper\copperbars\build\${env:BUILD}\copperbars.

Linker error: Error 29: Can't create output file c:\GitHub\hop\amiga-assembly\target\samples\hardware\copper\copperbars\build\${env:BUILD}\copperbars.
Linker error: Error 29: Can't create output file c:\GitHub\hop\amiga-assembly\target\samples\hardware\copper\copperbars\build\${env:BUILD}\copperbars..

Perhaps one possible solution would allow the extension's global "Build Dir" to be overridden in the vasm and vlink tasks. This would allow intermediates (.o) to build to an ignored local intermediates folder, and the final executables to build to a common folder.

"vasm": {
    ...
    "buildDir": "intermediates",  // I'm only assembling, not linking
    <snip>
 
"vlink": {
   "buildDir": "${env:BUILD}",  // all my projects build into here
   "exefilename": "copperbars",

Would something like this be possible?

[gigabates]

Yeah it needs to be applied on a per-field basis. I only added it for the args arrays but it shouldn't be a problem to add it for others.

[hop]

Excellent. If the 'exeFilename' field supports variable substitution and absolute paths that would be great.

[prb28]

Pull request from gigabates in 1.3.5 pre-release.
I'll do a real release soon.

[thyslo]

I'm trying to get the current version 1.4.0 of this great plugin to run in a kinda strange hybrid mode:

- Visual Studio Code runs in normal Windows mode (Not in WSL mode)
- But the files to build (the include dir etc) are on a WSL share which is accessed like "\\wsl$\Debian\home\{username}\winuae-share\Workbench\dev\asm\Amiga-hardware-coding\build\SimpleCopper.o

And the assembly works so far:

Compiling current editor file...
building \\wsl$\Debian\home\{username}\winuae-share\Workbench\dev\asm\Amiga-hardware-coding\build\SimpleCopper.o
c:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Code\User\globalStorage\prb28.amiga-assembly\file-downloader-downloads\vscode-amiga-assembly-binaries-@-1.2.0\prb28-vscode-amiga-assembly-binaries-4afbaa0/vasmm68k_mot -m68000 -Fhunk -linedebug -o \\wsl$\Debian\home\{username}\winuae-share\Workbench\dev\asm\Amiga-hardware-coding\build\SimpleCopper.o \\wsl$\Debian\home\{username}\winuae-share\Workbench\dev\asm\Amiga-hardware-coding\src\03-SimpleCopper\SimpleCopper.asm
vasm 1.8j (c) in 2002-2020 Volker Barthelmann
vasm M68k/CPU32/ColdFire cpu backend 2.3n (c) 2002-2020 Frank Wille
vasm motorola syntax module 3.14c (c) 2002-2020 Frank Wille
vasm hunk format output module 2.13 (c) 2002-2020 Frank Wille

CODE(acrx2):             372 bytes
customchips(adrw4):               76 bytes


Terminal will be reused by tasks, press any key to close it.

But then, when I try to start a debug session using Amiga-Assembly: WinUAE Debug there is a vlink related error:

Starting build...
Compiling_________________________________________
Linking_________________________________________
c:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Code\User\globalStorage\prb28.amiga-assembly\file-downloader-downloads\vscode-amiga-assembly-binaries-@-1.2.0\prb28-vscode-amiga-assembly-binaries-4afbaa0/vlink -bamigahunk -Bstatic -o \\wsl$\Debian\home\{username}\winuae-share\Workbench\dev\asm\Amiga-hardware-coding\uae\dh0\myprogram
Fatal error 6: No input files.
Aborting.

Linker error: Fatal error 6: No input files.
Linker error: Fatal error 6: No input files.
The terminal process failed to launch (exit code: 1).

What could be the problem here?

[thyslo]

Ah..I found the reason but currently not how to fix it: My source file SimpleCopper.asm is not located in the workspace directory but in a sub directory I created, src. Moving the .asm file to workspace directory fixes it. But I'd like to have that src directory..

[prb28]

Originally Posted by thyslo

Ah..I found the reason but currently not how to fix it: My source file SimpleCopper.asm is not located in the workspace directory but in a sub directory I created, src. Moving the .asm file to workspace directory fixes it. But I'd like to have that src directory..

You can change the includes / excludes pattern for the vlink task in the .vscode/tasks.json.
https://github.com/prb28/vscode-amig...the-build-task

[thyslo]

I changed the tasks.json vlink includes to

"includes": "src/*.{s,S,asm,ASM}"

and now it works. Thank you!

[thyslo]

I run unto another question: When I build the project using the default build task in VSCode (Ctrl + Shift + b) the task amigaassembly: build is run. This task is defined in .vscode/tasks.json.

But when I save the current asm file I'm working on (using Ctrl +s), it seems to start a different build task, one that only assembles that file. The terminal output starts with Compiling current editor file...

Where is this task defined?

[prb28]

Originally Posted by thyslo

Where is this task defined?

@thyslo sorry, I've just seen you question today
Here is the answer in the wiki https://github.com/prb28/vscode-amig...yntax-checking

[seth_g]

Hello. Maybe you can help me on the vasm extension for VS Code. How can I define the loaded ROM in the launch.json?

And is it possible to reliable use the A500 model for debugging? I wrote a little initialisation and encountered that UAE jumps to 1.3 DOS and loses the debug handler after jump subroutine to OpenLib.

[prb28]

Originally Posted by seth_g

Hello. Maybe you can help me on the vasm extension for VS Code. How can I define the loaded ROM in the launch.json?

https://github.com/prb28/vscode-amig...nate-kickstart

Originally Posted by seth_g

And is it possible to reliable use the A500 model for debugging? I wrote a little initialisation and encountered that UAE jumps to 1.3 DOS and loses the debug handler after jump subroutine to OpenLib.

Stepping throw the rom/libs works better on winuae that the old version of fs-uae used. I'm not sure that everything is accessible.

[seth_g]

Thanks a lot, prb28

[iZero]

I decided to learn some Amiga asm and I'm going through the examples of Fabio Ciucci's assembler book. I have been using this extension to try the code (FS-UAE on MacOS). Now I run into some problems that I don't know how to resolve. The examples assemble fine with AsmPro on Amiga, but fails with the vasm/vlink.

One problem is these instructions:

	ANDI.L	D1,D0
	CMPI.L	D2,D0

I get an error on both:

error 9: instruction not supported on selected architecture

Is it so that those are just not supported in vasm and I should replace them with other instructions?

Second problem is the branches from includes. Example has two files, Lezione8r.s and startup1.s.

Lezione8r.s has include "startup1.s" and in that file there's a branch to label START which is in the main source file after the include. When trying to run the example, the linker says:

Startup1.o: In "HEAVYINIT":
                           Error 21: Startup1.o (CODE+0x2ba): Reference to undefined symbol START.

I guess that the difference is in the way how the includes are handled, but I don't know how to fix it. Hence the noobie question.

[hooverphonique]

Originally Posted by iZero

One problem is these instructions:

    ANDI.L    D1,D0
    CMPI.L    D2,D0

I get an error on both:

ANDI/CMPI Dx,x is not a valid instruction - CMPI is compare immediate, meaning you would need an immediate value as the first argument (e.g. CMPI #10,D0).


Some assemblers will translate the variant of an instruction to the "appropriate" type based on the operands - your current vasm settings doesn't allow that, it seems.

[iZero]

Thanks, that makes sense now that you wrote it. I also realised that by default the example project compiles every .s file separately so that's why the label issue. I put only the file I want to compile to includes and it works fine.