I was trying to compare two strings because of my adding integers code which i posted here before. I could take string from user, also convert that to integer, but i have faced a problem during comparison of string (max size is 20 and if string is less than 20, there will be spaces) read from user and my character " * ". I thought that if i can compare them and they are not equal, i convert to integer and continue to adding, if they are equal it will exit from loop.
I wrote a simple code for comparing two strings, however that didn't give the result. Here is my code;
.data
str1: .asciiz "Comp"
str2: .asciiz "Comp"
.text
main:
la $s2, str1
la $s3, str2
move $s6, $s2
move $s7, $s3
li $s1, 5
beq $s6, $s7, exit
move $a0, $s1
li $v0, 1
syscall
exit:
li $v0, 10
syscall
After i have checked QtSpim's registers $s6 and $s7, i observed that there are different values. How can i compare two strings? Thank you.
I've adapted your program to prompt the user for strings, so you can try many values quickly. The cmploop
is the "meat" of the string compare, so you can just use that if you wish.
Here's it is [please pardon the gratuitous style cleanup]:
.data
prompt: .asciiz "Enter string ('.' to end) > "
dot: .asciiz "."
eqmsg: .asciiz "strings are equal\n"
nemsg: .asciiz "strings are not equal\n"
str1: .space 80
str2: .space 80
.text
.globl main
main:
# get first string
la $s2,str1
move $t2,$s2
jal getstr
# get second string
la $s3,str2
move $t2,$s3
jal getstr
# string compare loop (just like strcmp)
cmploop:
lb $t2,($s2) # get next char from str1
lb $t3,($s3) # get next char from str2
bne $t2,$t3,cmpne # are they different? if yes, fly
beq $t2,$zero,cmpeq # at EOS? yes, fly (strings equal)
addi $s2,$s2,1 # point to next char
addi $s3,$s3,1 # point to next char
j cmploop
# strings are _not_ equal -- send message
cmpne:
la $a0,nemsg
li $v0,4
syscall
j main
# strings _are_ equal -- send message
cmpeq:
la $a0,eqmsg
li $v0,4
syscall
j main
# getstr -- prompt and read string from user
#
# arguments:
# t2 -- address of string buffer
getstr:
# prompt the user
la $a0,prompt
li $v0,4
syscall
# read in the string
move $a0,$t2
li $a1,79
li $v0,8
syscall
# should we stop?
la $a0,dot # get address of dot string
lb $a0,($a0) # get the dot value
lb $t2,($t2) # get first char of user string
beq $t2,$a0,exit # equal? yes, exit program
jr $ra # return
# exit program
exit:
li $v0,10
syscall
The comparison relates the pointers. There needs to be a dereferencing in there.
lb $s6, ($s2)
lb $s7, ($s3)
Also, there needs to be checks for end of string.
lb $s6, ($s2)
bz eos
lb $s7, ($s3)
bz eos