ml.exe missing

Bomber6

Hi all, I'm doing a bit of programming in college (Assembly using Visual C++ 2008 Express downloaded from Dreamsparks). As a basic introduction I'm importing existing code from this site: http://www.kipirvine.com/asm/examples/index.htm

I try to build one of the examples but it fails as ML.exe is missing. I've tried using a different OS (was using win7 x64 so I installed x86 in case it mattered) but no good. I've also tried reinstalling and cannot find MASM for the 2008 version

Any ideas? I assume Win7 is good to go normally?

noxqs

I dont believe ml is provided via VS express editions. However, you can get it through the MASM32 package at http://www.masm32.com/

Remember to add it to your %PATH% environment variable if you want to ease your life a bit. Good luck and let me know if you need any help with assembly. I have programmed in MASM for over a decade

Bomber6

Many thanks for the help. Ok, installed MASM and copied the ml.exe and ml.err files into the VC/bin folder of Visual C++.
Now it's throwing the following error:

Assembling...
MASM : warning A4018: invalid command-line option : /errorReport:prompt
MASM : fatal error A1017: missing source filename
Project : error PRJ0019: A tool returned an error code from "Assembling..."

Damn program just doesn't want to work for me

noxqs

I think this is because your environment is not set correctly. It is important that the lib files is available in your path variable, if not, the compiler can not find them and link them. You dont receive a syntax error but effectively an error finding the file to compile.

Check that you have the MASM lib and bin in your %PATH% before continuing. Also imporant is that the bin and lib of the windows SDK is in your %PATH% if you are INVOKEing any win32 APIs.

If you still have problems let me know your current setup by pasting the output of cmd.exe "set" command and the file you are trying to compile.

Bomber6

I did the set path variables before I think for Java. Have set them I think (I only paste the paths seperated by comma's yes?)
I'm still getting errors though!

Assembling...
MASM : warning A4018: invalid command-line option : /errorReport:prompt
MASM : fatal error A1017: missing source filename
Project : error PRJ0019: A tool returned an error code from "Assembling..."

On a side note, I'm adding existing code main.asm however the code appears differently on my machine to what it should appear as. I'm a true novice when it comes to Assembly so I have very little understanding of what's going on yet

TITLE MASM Template						(main.asm)

; Description:
; 
; Revision date:

INCLUDE Irvine32.inc
.data
myMessage BYTE "MASM program example",0dh,0ah,0[B]

posVal REAL10 -999999999999999999.0
negVal REAL8 -1.5
intVal REAL8 999999999999999999.0

bcdVal TBYTE 0
guard BYTE 5 DUP(0FFh)

checkThis TBYTE 987654321
[/B]
.code
main PROC
	call Clrscr
   [B]
	fld	posVal		
	fbstp bcdVal	
   
	fld	negVal		; -1.5
	fbstp bcdVal	; rounds down to -2  ( 80 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 )
      [/B]
	mov	 edx,OFFSET myMessage
	call WriteString

	exit
main ENDP

END main

All Code in bold shouldn't be there I think.
Also, from the "set" CMD command

C:\>set
ALLUSERSPROFILE=C:\ProgramData
APPDATA=C:\Users\Stephen\AppData\Roaming
CommonProgramFiles=C:\Program Files\Common Files
COMPUTERNAME=WORKOS-LAPTOP
ComSpec=C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe
FP_NO_HOST_CHECK=NO
HOMEDRIVE=C:
HOMEPATH=\Users\Stephen
LOCALAPPDATA=C:\Users\Stephen\AppData\Local
LOGONSERVER=\\WORKOS-LAPTOP
NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS=2
OS=Windows_NT
Path=C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32
\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\,C:\masm32\bin,C:\masm32\lib
PATHEXT=.COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.MSC
PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE=x86
PROCESSOR_IDENTIFIER=x86 Family 6 Model 23 Stepping 10, GenuineIntel
PROCESSOR_LEVEL=6
PROCESSOR_REVISION=170a
ProgramData=C:\ProgramData
ProgramFiles=C:\Program Files
PROMPT=$P$G
PSModulePath=C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules\
PUBLIC=C:\Users\Public
SESSIONNAME=Console
SystemDrive=C:
SystemRoot=C:\Windows
TEMP=C:\Users\Stephen\AppData\Local\Temp
TMP=C:\Users\Stephen\AppData\Local\Temp
USERDOMAIN=WorkOS-Laptop
USERNAME=Stephen
USERPROFILE=C:\Users\Stephen
VS90COMNTOOLS=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\Tools\
windir=C:\Windows

Oh and again, thanks for the help!

noxqs

Your path syntax is wrong:

\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\,C:\masm32\bin,C:\masm32\lib

it is ; that seperates and not ,

I copied the files in his VS2010 package to the root of my masm32 folder (I should have sorted it but hey..).

Run the following command to compile then:

ml -nologo -c -Zi test.asm
(I saved your code in test.asm file). This assembles fine once your path variable is correct. (I did a quick set PATH=%PATH%;c:\masm32\bin;c:\masm32\lib)

Then link with the following:

link /NOLOGO /SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE irvine32.lib kernel32.lib user32.lib test.obj /ENTRY:main

(All of these switches was gathered basically from asm32.bat).

P.S.

you are correct about the unnessary code you can just do:

INCLUDE Irvine32.inc
.data
myMessage BYTE "MASM program example",0dh,0ah,0
.code
main PROC
	call Clrscr
	mov edx, OFFSET myMessage
	call WriteString
	exit
main ENDP

END main

Which should look far less intimidating than the original code

Bomber6

Ok my mistake. Fixed that issue. Still not right though as you can guess. In case it helps here's the command lines section of the buildlog:

Creating temporary file "c:\Irvine\IrvineExamplesVS2008\ch03\Project\Debug\BAT0000031121168.bat" with contents
[
@echo off

ml.exe /c  /nologo /Fo"Debug\Moves.obj" /Fl"Moves.lst" /I "c:\Irvine" /W3 /Zi /errorReport:prompt  /Ta..\Moves.asm

if errorlevel 1 goto VCReportError

goto VCEnd

:VCReportError

echo Project : error PRJ0019: A tool returned an error code from "Assembling..."

exit 1

:VCEnd
]
Creating command line "c:\Irvine\IrvineExamplesVS2008\ch03\Project\Debug\BAT0000031121168.bat"
Creating temporary file "c:\Irvine\IrvineExamplesVS2008\ch03\Project\Debug\BAT0000041121168.bat" with contents
[
@echo off

ml.exe /c  /nologo /Fo"Debug\main.obj" /Fl"main.lst" /I "c:\Irvine" /W3 /Zi /errorReport:prompt  /Ta.\main.asm

if errorlevel 1 goto VCReportError

goto VCEnd

:VCReportError

echo Project : error PRJ0019: A tool returned an error code from "Assembling..."

exit 1

:VCEnd
]
Creating command line "c:\Irvine\IrvineExamplesVS2008\ch03\Project\Debug\BAT0000041121168.bat"

Also note that when I opened the project it had an .asm file called move already opened that I cannot view (I was supposed to open main.asm manually)

I haven't even started programming in Assembly yet and I already loathe it :mad:

Thanks once again!

EDIT: Just saw your edit, ignore all the above while I mess around with this. Also, on a side note is blank/white space the same in Assembly as in higher-level languages like Java? (i.e. Ignored)

EDIT: Assuming that after doing as you say I open the project in C:\masm32\ch03\project in Visual C++ the problem is still recurring. Same message as before. I assume you can write assembly in TextPad and run it without Visual C++? If I could just get code to run on my system I would be happy, for now at least anyway. Also I have contacted the lecturer about the problem so I'm excused from project work until Monday thankfully
And that code looks much nicer

noxqs

Yes whitespace is ignored.

I would suggest a simple batch file consisting of the lines:

ml -nologo -c -Zi test.asm
link /NOLOGO /SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE irvine32.lib kernel32.lib user32.lib test.obj /ENTRY:main

Should do - you can copy the lib files to \lib by the way. I am doing this entirely with notepad and cmd.exe - it is the most appropriate for these kind of projects. Alternatively the VS compiler supports inline assembler via __asm {}.

Bomber6

Ok I'm still messing with this but I've got loads to do elsewhere. Hopefully by tomorrow evening I'll have something sussed for this. If not I may be looking for a tiny bit more help noxqs
Thanks!

Bomber6

Solved. I got to check the Lab Computers yesterday. It seem SP1 for the Visual C++ 2008 Express was installed on their machines. Obviously mine wasn't up to date. I can hear the cry's of always make sure your software is up to date but it wouldn't update by Microsoft Update as intended. Since I couldn't find an SP1-only download I have to download the .iso file containing all express versions of Visual from Microsoft
Makes you wonder, why distribute the non-SP1 version via Dreamspark if it will cause this hassle. The use of the 2010 example would also have solved the problem I'm told though...

Thans noxqs for the help. Will file all that for future use