I'm learning MIPS 32 bit assembly in the NIOS II IDE and I've got a complete working subroutine that multiplies two numbers stored in r4 and r5 and return the result in r2:
.global muladd # makes label "main" globally known
.text # Instructions follow
.align 2 # Align instructions to 4-byte words
muladd:
movi r2, 0 # total = 0
movi r8, 0 # i = 0
L1: # if( i >= a ) goto L2
bge r8, r4, L2 # a i r4
# total = total + b
add r2, r2, r5 # öka b med r5
addi r8, r8, 1 # i = i + 1
br L1 # goto L1
L2: # return( total )
ret
How can I call the subroutine and print something from it to make sure that it is working as expected? This is my first subroutine and I have never called a subroutine before, so please pardon me if I don't understand everything right away.
You call the subroutine from main like this:
main:
...
li r4, 123 // load some test data into r4 and r5
li r5, 1
jal muladd // call muladd. Return address is stored in r31
nop // branch delay slot
// muladd returns to this address.
// If muladd worked correctly r2 should contain decimal 123+1, or 124
// print subroutine call goes here
...
Muladd returns by using jr r31
(jump to the address contained in register 31). Your non-standard environment may be spelling this as ret
.