Print integer to console in x86 assembly

Question

When I add two values in 16 bit assembly, what is the best way to print the result to console?

At the moment I have this code:

;;---CODE START---;;
mov ax, 1   ;put 1 into ax
add ax, 2   ; add 2 to ax current value
mov ah,2  ; 2 is the function number of output char in the DOS Services.
mov dl, ax ; DL takes the value.
int 21h    ; calls DOS Services

mov ah,4Ch   ; 4Ch is the function number for exit program in DOS Services.
int 21h      ; function 4Ch doesn't care about anything in the registers.
;;---CODE END---;;

I think that dl value should be in ASCII code, but I'm not sure how to convert ax value after addition into ASCII.

Answer 1

mov dl, ax

This won't work as dl and ax have different bit sizes. What you want to do is create a loop in which you divide the 16 bit value by 10, remember the rest on the stack, and then continue the loop with the integer division result. When you reach a result of 0, clean up the stack digit by digit, adding 48 to the digits to turn them into ASCII digits, then print them.

Answer 2

Just fixing the order of @Nathan Fellman 's code

PrintNumber proc
    mov cx, 0
    mov bx, 10
@@loophere:
    mov dx, 0
    div bx                          ;divide by ten

    ; now ax <-- ax/10
    ;     dx <-- ax % 10

    ; print dx
    ; this is one digit, which we have to convert to ASCII
    ; the print routine uses dx and ax, so let's push ax
    ; onto the stack. we clear dx at the beginning of the
    ; loop anyway, so we don't care if we much around with it

    push ax
    add dl, '0'                     ;convert dl to ascii

    pop ax                          ;restore ax
    push dx                         ;digits are in reversed order, must use stack
    inc cx                          ;remember how many digits we pushed to stack
    cmp ax, 0                       ;if ax is zero, we can quit
jnz @@loophere

    ;cx is already set
    mov ah, 2                       ;2 is the function number of output char in the DOS Services.
@@loophere2:
    pop dx                          ;restore digits from last to first
    int 21h                         ;calls DOS Services
    loop @@loophere2

    ret
PrintNumber endp

Answer 3

You basically want to divide by 10, print the remainder (one digit), and then repeat with the quotient.

    ; assume number is in eax
    mov ecx, 10

loophere:
    mov edx, 0
    div ecx

    ; now eax <-- eax/10
    ;     edx <-- eax % 10

    ; print edx
    ; this is one digit, which we have to convert to ASCII
    ; the print routine uses edx and eax, so let's push eax
    ; onto the stack. we clear edx at the beginning of the
    ; loop anyway, so we don't care if we much around with it

    push eax

    ; convert dl to ascii
    add dl, '0'

    mov ah,2  ; 2 is the function number of output char in the DOS Services.
    int 21h    ; calls DOS Services

    ; now restore eax
    pop eax

    ; if eax is zero, we can quit

    cmp eax, 0
    jnz loophere

---

As a side note, you have a bug in your code right here:

mov ax, 1   ;put 1 into ax
add ax, 2   ; add 2 to ax current value
mov ah,2  ; 2 is the function number of output char in the DOS Services.
mov dl, ax ; DL takes the value.

You put 2 in ah, and then you put ax in dl. You're basically junking ax before printing it.

You also have a size mismatch since dl is 8 bits wide and ax is 16 bits wide.

What you should do is flip the last two lines and fix the size mismatch:

mov ax, 1   ;put 1 into ax
add ax, 2   ; add 2 to ax current value

mov dl, al ; DL takes the value.
mov ah,2  ; 2 is the function number of output char in the DOS Services.

Answer 4

The basic algorithm is:

divide number x by 10, giving quotient q and remainder r
emit r
if q is not zero, set x = q and repeat 

Note that this will yield the digits in the inverse order, so you are probably going to want to replace the "emit" step with something that stores each digit, so that you can later iterate in reverse over the stored digits.

Also, note that to convert a binary number between 0 and 9 (decimal) to ascii, just add the ascii code for '0' (which is 48) to the number.