asmgen — ABI0 & design notes

Why ABI0, not ABIInternal

Go has two calling conventions:

• ABIInternal — the register-based convention the compiler uses internally. It is an unstable contract that can change between Go releases.
• ABI0 — the stack-based, FP-relative convention. Arguments and results live on the stack, addressed via the FP pseudo-register in declaration order. This is the stable contract that hand-written .s files target.

go-asmgen targets ABI0. That is what makes the emitted assembly safe to check in and rely on across Go versions, and it is what go vet’s asmdecl pass understands.

The ABI0 layout model

arm64.Layout lays out arguments, then results, contiguously. Each value is placed at an offset that respects its own alignment, and the total argument+result area is rounded up to the register word size (8 bytes on arm64):

func align(n, to int) int { return (n + to - 1) &^ (to - 1) }

For func add(a, b int64) int64 that yields:

so the TEXT directive is $0-24 (frame 0, args+results 24) and the loads/stores use a+0(FP), b+8(FP), ret+16(FP).

The result area is word-aligned

One subtlety asmdecl enforces: the result area starts at an offset rounded up to the register word size (8 on arm64), and the total frame size is the end of the last result — it is not rounded further. So func add16(a, b int16) int16 lays out a@0, b@2, but ret@8 (not ret@4), with TEXT $0-10:

Getting this wrong is exactly the kind of mistake go vet asmdecl catches before runtime.

Move selection

LoadArg/StoreRet pick the Plan 9 move from the parameter’s Type:

Sub-word loads use the sign- or zero-extending form so the whole register holds the correct value; floats use the F register file. Arithmetic is still supplied via the Raw escape hatch (e.g. ADDW, FADDD).

What’s supported

All six targets handle sequences of scalars in any combination — signed and unsigned integers of 1/2/4/8 bytes, pointers, and 32/64-bit floats — plus:

• struct, slice, and string parameters — see Aggregates;
• fixed-size arrays passed by value, addressed element-wise — see Aggregates › Fixed-size arrays;
• SIMD (SSE/NEON/RVV/LSX/VSX/s390x vector) emitted through Raw over pointer arguments — see SIMD.

The same model drives amd64, arm64, riscv64, loong64, ppc64le and s390x.

Each new case is checked against go vet asmdecl, which cross-checks .s offsets and access widths against the Go declaration. See the Roadmap.

TEXT flags and stack frames

NewFunc marks every function NOSPLIT, which omits the stack-growth preamble — fine for small leaf functions and the common case. For anything else, NewFuncFlags takes explicit Plan 9 TEXT flags:

b := arm64.NewFuncFlags("f", sig, 16, "")            // 16-byte frame, no NOSPLIT
b := arm64.NewFuncFlags("g", sig, 0, "NOSPLIT|NOFRAME")

Passing "" omits the flags so the assembler inserts the stack-growth preamble (needed for large frames or non-leaf functions). frameSize > 0 reserves stack locals, addressed name-N(SP) via Raw. See examples/frame, which spills its arguments to a 16-byte frame, non-NOSPLIT, runtime-proven.

Builder helpers beyond moves

Besides LoadArg/StoreRet, the builder offers a few helpers that stay uniform across all six targets (everything else is Raw):

• LoadIndirect(ptrReg, t, reg) / StoreIndirect(reg, ptrReg, t) — load/store through a pointer register (MOVD (R0), R1), move width chosen from the type.
• Label(name) — a branch target at column 0, for loops written via Raw.
• emit.File.Data(name, bytes) — a file-local read-only DATA/GLOBL constant table, returning the symbol to address. This is what SIMD kernels load for a weight vector or shuffle mask; see examples/amd64/data.

These exist because they are genuinely architecture-uniform. A full instruction-level DSL is deliberately not a goal: it would re-implement, per architecture, what cmd/asm already validates — fighting the “emit text, let cmd/asm encode” thesis that keeps adding a target cheap.

Validation priorities

The asmgen CI encodes the correctness order:

1. go vet asmdecl — offsets in the .s match the Go declaration.
2. Generated assembly is committed — CI regenerates and fails on any diff.
3. Runtime test — the function is actually called and its result checked: natively on amd64 and arm64, and under qemu-user for riscv64, loong64, ppc64le and s390x (the s390x run exercising the big-endian path).