2.2.2.4. Your first Binutils hack

Have you ever felt that a single inc instruction was not enough? Really? Me too!

So let’s hack the GNU GAS assembler, which is part of GNU Binutils, to add a new shiny version of inc called…​ myinc!

GCC uses GNU GAS as its backend, so we will test out new mnemonic with an GCC inline assembly test program: userland/arch/x86_64/binutils_hack.c, which is just a copy of userland/arch/x86_64/binutils_nohack.c but with myinc instead of inc.

The inline assembly is disabled with an #ifdef, so first modify the source to enable that.

Then, try to build userland:

./build-userland

and watch it fail with:

binutils_hack.c:8: Error: no such instruction: `myinc %rax'

Now, edit the file

vim submodules/binutils-gdb/opcodes/i386-tbl.h

and add a copy of the "inc" instruction just next to it, but with the new name "myinc":

diff --git a/opcodes/i386-tbl.h b/opcodes/i386-tbl.h
index af583ce578..3cc341f303 100644
--- a/opcodes/i386-tbl.h
+++ b/opcodes/i386-tbl.h
@@ -1502,6 +1502,19 @@ const insn_template i386_optab[] =
     { { { 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
 	  0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0,
 	  1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 } } } },
+  { "myinc", 1, 0xfe, 0x0, 1,
+    { { 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
+        0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
+        0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
+        0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
+        0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 } },
+    { 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
+      0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
+      0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
+      0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 },
+    { { { 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
+	  0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0,
+	  1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 } } } },
   { "sub", 2, 0x28, None, 1,
     { { 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
         0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,

Finally, rebuild Binutils, userland and test our program with User mode simulation:

./build-buildroot -- host-binutils-rebuild
./build-userland --static
./run --static --userland userland/arch/x86_64/binutils_hack.c

and we se that myinc worked since the assert did not fail!

Tested on b60784d59bee993bf0de5cde6c6380dd69420dda + 1.