Package Directory Structure

LinAsm source code package has very simple directory structure. I prefer to follow KISS principle in software developing process and recommend you to keep in mind this style in your programs. It works fine for big and very complex projects, allows to keep source code clear, stable and human readable for future code maintainers.

Source code is placed into separate directories are called "include" and "source". "Build" directory holds FASM compiler for assembly source code.

include

The "include" directory holds C and C++ header files that define function prototypes, structures and data types. They should be copied as is into local include directory such as /usr/include or /usr/local/include. Installation procedure will do it for you automatically, according to the settings you provide.

To call LinAsm functions you should include these header files as you do this for all other headers. LinAsm headers should not conflict with other system headers you already have in Linux.

source

The "source" directory includes assembly source code files, are written on Flat Assembler programming language, developed by Tomasz Grysztar. Its official web site is http://flatassembler.net.

I used a lot of FASM macros to generate assembly code and replaced registers with variable names using "equ" directive of assembly language. Source code looks now as high level language instructions. But it is assembler in fact. You should not modify predefined constants are used in these files except you well know what you are doing.

build

LinAsm source code should be compiled by "fasm" executable file, which is placed into "build" directory of each LinAsm release. To allow this file to be launched, please check that a file system has mount option "exec" and the file "build/fasm" has appropriate execution permission.

The fasm file has no backdoors, viruses or rootkits. It is vanilla FASM compiler, extracted from official FASM installation kit and placed into build directory. This is required only for compilation stage and doesn't use for any other purposes.