Base pointer and stack pointer

Question

Given this piece of code:

       swap:

            push ebp ; back up the base pointer,
            mov ebp, esp
            ; push the context of the registers on the stack

            push eax
            push ebx
            push ecx
            push edx

            mov eax, [ebp+8] ; address of the first parameter
            mov ebx, [ebp+12] ; address of the second parameter
            mov dl, [eax]
            mov cl, [ebx]

            mov [eax], cl

            mov [ebx], dl

            ; restore the context of the registers from the stack

            pop edx
            pop ecx  
            pop ebx
            pop eax
            ; restore the ebp
            pop ebp
            ret

(This is just the method. Previously we pushed the first and the second parameter on the stack.)

My question is: why do we add 8 to the Base Pointer to get to the address of the first parameter and then 12 ?

I get the fact that they are dword so each of them are 4 bytes..so from ebp + 8 to ebp + 12 it makes sens to make. But why the first one is ebp + 8 ? Because if ESP points to the TOP of the stack, mov ebp, esp means that EBP points to the TOP of the stack. Then we push 4 values on the stack : eax, ebx, ecx and edx. Why is EBP + 8 pointing on the first parameter ?

Michael Burr Michael Burr · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-22T01:41:29

When the function is called, the stack looks like:

+-------------+
| Parameter 2 |
+-------------+
| Parameter 1 |
+-------------+
| Return Addr |  <-- esp
+-------------+

then after the "stack frame" is set up:

+-------------+
| Parameter 2 | <-- [ebp + 12]
+-------------+
| Parameter 1 | <-- [ebp + 8]
+-------------+
| Return Addr |  
+-------------+    
| saved ebp   | <-- ebp
+-------------+ <-- esp

Now the context is saved:

+-------------+
| Parameter 2 | <-- [ebp + 12]
+-------------+
| Parameter 1 | <-- [ebp + 8]
+-------------+
| Return Addr |  
+-------------+    
| saved ebp   | <-- ebp
+-------------+ 
| saved eax   |  
+-------------+    
| saved ebx   |  
+-------------+    
| saved ecx   |  
+-------------+    
| saved edx   | <-- esp
+-------------+

Don't forget that on many systems the stack grows downward (and that is definitely true of the x86 family), so the top of the stack will have the lowest memory address.

Base pointer and stack pointer

2 Answers