Small IRA Tutorial

[BippyM]

is IRA amiga only? is there a windows version?

[kamelito]

There is a Windows executable in the archive.

[BippyM]

Originally Posted by kamelito

There is a Windows executable in the archive.

Found it thanks, ? might have to create a gui

[phx]

It's portable C99 using only standard clib functions, so it will run on any system with a working C compiler.

[kamelito]

@PHX
A nice option to add to IRA would be for example if a program is only for 68000 but there's code in there for other 68k it would be nice to be able to add a comment line in the config file to say this hex code at offset x to y are for the instructions z.

[kamelito]

@PHX
If you add code to an IRA disassembly do you’ve to move the BASEREG by adding the value of the size of the added code /2? Something else ? To correct the value loaded to A4?

[phx]

Originally Posted by kamelito

If you add code to an IRA disassembly do you’ve to move the BASEREG by adding the value of the size of the added code /2?

Once you achieved a perfect reassembly, where all code/data regions and label-references have been found, including the small-data base location and offset, you can easily modify and extend the source, without having to fix anything.

With a valid BASEREG, BASEADR and BASEOFF in your config file (or -basereg option), IRA will generate labels for small data references. These labels will still be correct after you add code.


Sorry missed that:

Originally Posted by kamelito

A nice option to add to IRA would be for example if a program is only for 68000 but there's code in there for other 68k it would be nice to be able to add a comment line in the config file to say this hex code at offset x to y are for the instructions z.

I guess that this might be possible, because IRA also decides not to reassemble instructions like

move.l (a0,d0.l*8),d0

in 68000 mode, although it would be valid and execute (without scaling) on the 68000.
I'm not too keen on digging into the disassembler part, though, because this is what Nicolas Bastien rewrote completely over the last years. Maybe we can ask him.

[kamelito]

I guess then something is missing in my disassembly. I’ll have to check again. There’s part where adding code works, others parts not.
Thx for answering

[hop]

Originally Posted by phx

That's a bug. There should be no automatic file format detection when you clearly specified it as raw binary. Fixed.


Yes. Seems that Nicolas prepared IRA for some more formats like Atari, Megadrive and ELF executables. Your binary definitely has an Atari header.


Might be a second bug, but as Atari is not yet implemented I would ignore it for now.

I've been enjoying using ira recently, but I've just hit the "Atari's executable files not yet supported." issue on an amiga binary which is being preprocessed with -binary

C:\Amiga>tools\ira\ira -a -compat=bi -binary -offset=$400 -preproc Loader

IRA V2.09 (Sep 19 2017)
(c)1993-1995 Tim Ruehsen (SiliconSurfer/PHANTASM)
(c)2009-2015 Frank Wille
(c)2014-2017 Nicolas Bastien

Atari's executable files not yet supported.

Am I using an old version of the executable? It looks like the version number is the same, but the date is older than mentioned in this thread. Is the code with the fix available? I am using the exe from https://aminet.net/package/dev/asm/ira Perhaps I need to build the source from the lha, but it looks like it was last updated in 2018 (predating this thread).

Thanks for any pointers.

[paraj]

Not sure where phx publishes new, official releases, but you can get the source for a newer version here: https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p...8&postcount=62

[jotd]

this atari file detection is buggy. If there's a "bra" instruction at the start of the binary IRA may detect it as an Atari ST (and deletes the file as a bonus bug!!)

-binary switch is overridden by the Atari ST detection... which isn't supported...

My workaround is to change the first byte of the binary file to 0. But changing to e.g. $67 so bra => beq could be even better (and restore bra manually)

Even with the bugs, IRA remains an invaluable tool for me.

[hop]

Thanks very much. I'll try the new source code and if that doesn't work I'll try a workaround. Perhaps adding a NOP at the start of the binary and offsetting by a couple of bytes would work.

[paraj]

Let's fix the code if it's still an issue with the latest version (which may not be what I linked). Looks like Atari is detected if first two bytes are $60,$1a.

If you could upload the offending file to the zone I'll check if it works for me.

[hop]

Originally Posted by paraj

Let's fix the code if it's still an issue with the latest version (which may not be what I linked). Looks like Atari is detected if first two bytes are $60,$1a.

If you could upload the offending file to the zone I'll check if it works for me.

Thanks. I haven't uploaded to the Zone before. The link at the top doesn't work but I am connected to the ftp and ftp2. Do I have to put the file somewhere specific so you can find it?

[paraj]

Originally Posted by hop

Thanks. I haven't uploaded to the Zone before. The link at the top doesn't work but I am connected to the ftp and ftp2. Do I have to put the file somewhere specific so you can find it?

First join the user group:



https://eab.abime.net/faq.php?faq=vb...ezone_faq_item


Then you can click the zone link and upload (at the bottom)

[hop]

Originally Posted by paraj

First join the user group:



https://eab.abime.net/faq.php?faq=vb...ezone_faq_item


Then you can click the zone link and upload (at the bottom)

Thanks for that. I've uploaded Stage2Loader

EDIT: May contain a TVD, but hope ira can make a start.

[paraj]

Yep that starts w/ $601a, but works fine w/ the version I have (which I think I compiled from the source I linked). Added windows (64-bit) exe to the zone just in case.

[hop]

Originally Posted by paraj

Yep that starts w/ $601a, but works fine w/ the version I have (which I think I compiled from the source I linked). Added windows (64-bit) exe to the zone just in case.

Thanks testing and for the new ira.exe. Disassembles just fine now thanks. Sorry I missed the updated source in the other thread.

C:\Amiga\>tools\ira\ira -a -compat=bi -binary -offset=$400 -preproc Stage2Loader

IRA V2.10 (Jan 16 2022)
(c)1993-1995 Tim Ruehsen (SiliconSurfer/PHANTASM)
(c)2009-2015 Frank Wille
(c)2014-2019 Nicolas Bastien

SOURCE : "Stage2Loader"
TARGET : "Stage2Loader.asm"
BINARY : "Stage2Loader"
MACHINE: MC68000
OFFSET : $00000400
Pass 0: scanning for data in code
Areas:    3
codeAdrs: 0   codeAdrMax: 16
CodeArea[0]: 00000400 - 00000402
CodeArea[1]: 0000041c - 00000456
CodeArea[2]: 00000490 - 0000054c
CodeArea[3]: 00001a00 - 00001a00


Pass 1: 100%
Pass 2: correcting labels
Pass 2: writing mnemonics
100%

[paraj]

Glad you got it working
Maybe this will spur phx to make an "official" 2.10 release or educate us on where to get it

[phx]

Originally Posted by paraj

Maybe this will spur phx to make an "official" 2.10 release

Yes, indeed, I should do that! The last modification of the source was June 2022, so I should have done the realease back then...

Will upload to Aminet tomorrow (if I don't forget it).

Looking at the list of modifications I probably wanted to finish

HUNK_RELRELOC32

support. But this hunk is very rare. I wouldn't be surprised if vasm is the only assembler which can create it.

Bug fixes:
- Fixed parsing of HUNK_RELOC32SHORT/HUNK_DREL32.
- Renamed itoa() to avoid conflicts with compilers providing that function.
- -binary option always overrides the automatic format detection.
- Fixed detection of memory rotate instructions.
- Instructions with 32-bit absolute addressing, but with a relocation
  which extends into the following instruction, cannot be valid.
- Fixed ROMTag detection with a NULL-pointer for the Init-code.

New features:
- Supports HUNK_RELRELOC32 and EXT_RELREF32 in executables and object files.
  But cannot create labels for such references at this time.