Delphi XE2 assembly

Question

I have the following function that works in Delphi 2006, but under Delphi XE2 it gives either an access violation error or a privileged instruction error when processing RET.

function Q_TrimChar(const S: string; Ch: Char): string;
asm
        PUSH    ESI
        MOV     ESI,ECX
        TEST    EAX,EAX
        JE      @@qt
        MOV     ECX,[EAX-4]
        TEST    ECX,ECX
        JE      @@qt
        PUSH    EBX
        PUSH    EDI
        MOV     EBX,EAX
        MOV     EDI,EDX
        XOR     EDX,EDX
        MOV     EAX,ESI
        CALL    System.@LStrFromPCharLen
        MOV     EDX,EDI
        MOV     ECX,[EBX-4]
@@lp1:  CMP     DL,BYTE PTR [EBX]
        JNE     @@ex1
        INC     EBX
        DEC     ECX
        JNE     @@lp1
        MOV     EDX,[ESI]
        JMP     @@wq
@@ex1:  DEC     ECX
@@lp2:  CMP     DL,BYTE PTR [EBX+ECX]
        JNE     @@ex2
        DEC     ECX
        JMP     @@lp2
@@ex2:  MOV     EDI,[ESI]
        LEA     EDX,[EDI+ECX+1]
@@lp3:  MOV     AL,BYTE PTR [EBX+ECX]
        MOV     BYTE PTR [EDI+ECX],AL
        DEC     ECX
        JNS     @@lp3
@@wq:   MOV     EAX,[ESI]
        MOV     BYTE PTR [EDX],0
        SUB     EDX,EAX
        MOV     [EAX-4],EDX
        POP     EDI
        POP     EBX
        POP     ESI
        RET
@@qt:   MOV     EAX,ESI
        CALL    System.@LStrClr
        POP     ESI
end;

I don't know assembly very well. What is the problem?

Answer 1

Delphi 2006 uses single byte ANSI characters and so string is AnsiString, Char is AnsiChar. On Delphi 2009 and later, two byte Unicode characters are used. This function cannot possibly work on both compilers.

Even the standard hack of using AnsiString and AnsiChar does not work. Most likely the assumptions that this function makes about the RTL implementation are no longer valid in modern Delphi.

I would re-write this function in Pascal and let the compiler do the work. Not only will that be the quickest way to solve your current problem, it will also get you over the hurdle of 64-bit compilation should you ever choose to tackle that.

Answer 2

I completely agree with David's suggestion to simply code this in Pascal and have upvoted that answer. Unless profiling has indicated that this is a true bottleneck then there's really no need for the ASM. Here are two versions. The first is easier to read but the second is more efficient:

function Q_TrimChar(const S: string; Ch: Char): string;
begin
  result := S;
  while (result <> '') and (result[1] = Ch) do Delete(Result, 1, 1);
  while (result <> '') and (result[Length(Result)] = Ch) do Delete(Result, Length(Result), 1);
end;

function Q_TrimChar(const S: string; Ch: Char): string;
var
  First, Last : integer;
begin
  First := 1;
  Last := Length(S);
  while (First < Last) and (S[First] = Ch) do inc(First);
  while (Last >= First) and (S[Last] = Ch) do Dec(Last);
  Result := copy(S, First, Last-First+1);
end;