How do I convert a string representing a signed hex int into its signed int Doubleword number in 80x86? - string

Question

So I am taking an assembly language course and I am stuck on this problem from the book:
Using the windows 32 console (so I have an io.h to use), I am supposed to take a valid hex value inputted by the user and then display the actual hex value in the register EAX. So if the user entered "AB CD E2 18", then after the procedure EAX would hold the value: ABCDE218.
The parts that I am stuck on are the A-F values. If I use A for example, I can get the bits to read 00000010, but I don't know how to change that into its hex value A. Here is what I have so far:
.586
.MODEL FLAT
.CODE
hexToInt PROC
push ebp ; save base pointer
mov ebp, esp ; establish stack frame
sub esp, 4 ; local space for sign
push ebx ; Save registers
push edx
push esi
pushfd ; save flags
mov esi,[ebp+8] ; get parameter (source addr)
WhileBlankD:
cmp BYTE PTR [esi],' ' ; space?
jne EndWhileBlankD ; exit if not
inc esi ; increment character pointer
jmp WhileBlankD ; and try again
EndWhileBlankD:
mov eax,1 ; default sign multiplier
IfPlusD:cmp BYTE PTR [esi],'+' ; leading + ?
je SkipSignD ; if so, skip over
IfMinusD:
cmp BYTE PTR [esi],'-' ; leading - ?
jne EndIfSignD ; if not, save default +
mov eax,-1 ; -1 for minus sign
SkipSignD:
inc esi ; move past sign
EndIfSignD:
mov [ebp-4],eax ; save sign multiplier
mov eax,0 ; number being accumulated
WhileDigitD:
cmp BYTE PTR [esi],'0' ; compare next character to '0'
jb EndWhileDigitD ; not a digit if smaller than '0'
cmp BYTE PTR [esi],'9' ; compare to '9'
ja TestForHexD
mov bl,[esi] ; ASCII character to BL
and ebx,0000000Fh ; convert to single-digit integer
and eax, ebx
shl eax, 4
inc esi
jmp WhileDigitD
TestForHexD:
cmp BYTE PTR [esi], 'F'
ja EndWhileDigitD
mov bl, [esi]
sub bl, 31h
and ebx, 000000FFh
or al, bl
shl eax, 4
inc esi ; increment character pointer
jmp WhileDigitD ; go try next character
EndWhileDigitD:
; if value is < 80000000h, multiply by sign
cmp eax,80000000h ; 80000000h?
jnb endIfMaxD ; skip if not
imul DWORD PTR [ebp-4] ; make signed number
endIfMaxD:
popfd ; restore flags
pop esi ; restore registers
pop edx
pop ebx
mov esp, ebp ; delete local variable space
pop ebp
ret ; exit
hexToInt ENDP
END
The TestForHex label is where I am trying to convert the ASCII string to hex. I was looking around and read that I could accomplish my goal by shifting and masking, but I can't figure it out and I can't find any examples. At this point I am sure its something really small that I am just over looking, but I am stuck.

Answer 1

There are some bugs in your code.
First, in 0 ... 9 string to integer conversion code, you don't do ASCII to binary conversion as you should do, but instead you do and ebx,0Fh, which is incorrect. You need to subtract '0' (30h) from each ASCII character, like this:
mov bl,[esi]
sub bl,'0' ; sub bl,30h
Then, also in 0 ... 9 string to integer conversion code:
and eax, ebx
If the number consists of only 0...9 digits, and eax, ebx will produce always 0. It should be:
or al,bl
Then, you do shl eax,4, even if you don't know if there will be more digits. That means that the number will be 16 times bigger than it should.
Then, you give the example input with spaces, but your code does not handle spaces (20h) properly, it ends reading input for any value below '0' (30h), it seems to accept only leading spaces (skip this if you don't want to accept spaces in between).
So, the entire code block above should be:
WhileDigitD:
cmp byte ptr [esi], ' ' ; delete this if you don't want spaces in between.
je next_char ; delete this if you don't want spaces in between.
cmp BYTE PTR [esi],'0' ; compare next character to '0'
jb EndWhileDigitD ; not a digit if smaller than '0'
cmp BYTE PTR [esi],'9' ; compare to '9'
ja TestForHexD
mov bl,[esi] ; ASCII character to BL
sub bl,'0' ; sub bl,30h -> convert ASCII to binary.
shift_eax_by_4_and_add_bl:
shl eax,4 ; shift the current value 4 bits to left.
or al,bl ; add the value of the current digit.
next_char:
inc esi
jmp WhileDigitD
I also added labels next_char and shift_eax_by_4_and_add_bl. The reason for next_char should be evident, shift_eax_by_4_and_add_bl is to minimize duplicate code of 0...9 and A...F code blocks, see below.
You don't check that that the hexadecimal A...F digit is within range A ... F, only that it's below or equal to F. Otherwise it has same bug with shl eax,4. And as usually duplicate code should be avoided, I added shift_eax_by_4_and_add_bl label to minimize duplicate code.
So I think it should be:
Edit: corrected sub bl,31h -> sub bl,('A'-0Ah).
TestForHexD:
cmp BYTE PTR [esi], 'A'
jb EndWhileDigitD
cmp BYTE PTR [esi], 'F'
ja EndWhileDigitD
mov bl,[esi]
sub bl,('A'-0Ah) ; sub bl,55 -> convert ASCII to binary.
jmp shift_eax_by_4_and_add_bl

Answer 2

If you need to convert a character (for simplicity, say, in upper case) representing a hex digit into the value of that digit you need to do this:
IF char >= 'A'
value = char - 'A' + 10
ELSE
value = char - '0'
ENDIF
If you need to do the reverse, you do the reverse:
IF value >= 10
char = value - 10 + 'A'
ELSE
char = value + '0'
ENDIF
Here you exploit the fact that the ASCII characters 0 through 9 have consecutive ASCII codes and so do the ASCII characters A through F.