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Yesterday, I was asking about overflow and underflow and how to check whether a value that was just changed is greater than or equal to (>=) 10.

For the last hand-written Assembly function that I need in my game, I want to do a comparison of two values. (Well, actually a comparison of two arrays, but the array aspect isn't important for my question.)

Both values are set in variables, i.e. I don't compare a variable with a constant value, but I compare two variables.

Now what do I have to do to check for "less than" (<) and "greater than" (>).

I do not need <= and >=, like I did yesterday. Only < and >.
What would be XXX and YYY in this case?

CMP puts < vs >= in carry. (Unsigned 8 bit, anyway. Signed or 16+ bit is a little more complicated.)

If you want > vs <= then reverse the two terms (CMP the 2nd against the 1st one instead of vice versa).

If you want < and > then you may create a third case to eliminate = by branching on the Z flag (BEQ/BNZ). If you get rid of the = case then the >= case is reduced to just >.

O.k., let's try this:
Correct so far?

You have the carry condition backwards.

Carry is set by CMP if A (Value1) is greater than or equal to its paramter (Value2). If it is less than, carry is cleared by CMP.

BCS = Branch if Carry is Set
BCC = Branch if Carry is Clear

BCS is greater than or equal. In your example equal is checked for, but BCS should be bcc. (And... it should also go before BEQ. Having BEQ first means you check for it on BCC cases, which adds time to them. If a BCC branches, you don't need a beq check, so having it before checking for that range is a bit slower.)

A compare is a subtract. CMP and SBC are identical except CMP does not care about the state of the carry going in, and doesn't affect A with the result.

The carry flag lets you know about overflow/underflow. Typically before starting a subtract with sbc, you set the carry flag with sec. Knowing this, it makes sense that carry flag reverses (clears) on underflow. An underflow occurs when you subtract a value larger than the first. Which means that if the second value is smaller (or equal), there will be no underflow. Thus the carry will stay set.

So... the carry staying set means the value you're subtracting was less than or equal. Which means the first value was greater than or equal to the second value. Because a compare is a subtract.

A little mnemonic that can be helpful in remembering which is which: 0 < 1, so if carry=0 (BCC), it's "less than".

Or, you can make a wrapper macro for it/them, which is what I usually do.

rainwarrior wrote:Carry is set by CMP if its parameter (Value2) is greater than or equal to register A (Value1). If it is less than, carry is cleared by CMP.

Wait... you got it backwards. CMP is a subtraction. If A holds a big number (Value1) and you subtract a small number (Value2), there's no borrow/underflow, meaning the carry is set. If A holds a small number (Value1) and you subtract a big number (Value2), there's a borrow/underflow, so the carry is cleared.

EDIT: Personally, I don't like the expressions "greater than" and "less than" because I never know which value goes on which end of the expression (e.g. is it "accumulator greater than argument" or "argument greater than accumulator"?), so I much prefer to always think of comparisons as subtractions, and look out for underflows to know which value is larger.

Sorry. I should go to bed. Yes, my description was wrong, but DRW's example was indeed backwards. I have amended my description.

rainwarrior wrote:Carry is set by CMP if A (Value1) is greater than or equal to its paramter (Value2). If it is less than, carry is cleared by CMP.

BCS = Branch if Carry is Set
BCC = Branch if Carry is Clear

Many assemblers support mnemonic aliases described by Western Design Center. (Open 65c816.txt and search for "common mnemonic aliases".) If yours does not, you can write a macro, as thefox suggested.

BCS = BGE = Branch if Greater or Equal
BCC = BLT = Branch if Less Than

If you're unsure of the ASM...write it in C code in a blank cc65 file, and see how it compiles it. It takes like 10 seconds to do.

dougeff wrote:If you're unsure of the ASM...write it in C code in a blank cc65 file, and see how it compiles it. It takes like 10 seconds to do.

I tried, but it created such a strange code. I'm not at home in the moment, but I can post it later.

dougeff wrote:If you're unsure of the ASM...write it in C code in a blank cc65 file, and see how it compiles it. It takes like 10 seconds to do.

O.k., I know now what I did wrong:

Since my actual build command is used with cl65 and therefore, the Assembly files are only created in memory, but not on the hard disk, I always have to do a manual call to cc65 when I want to see the Assembly code of a source file. And I forgot to turn on optimization for this manual call. That's why the code was so strange. But yeah, with the -O switch, everything looks like it should.

This way of setting the carry if it is greater or equal does help in many cases, for example if you are doing CMP #10 in order to do carrying for decimal arithmetic; you might not need a branch in such a case.

I would possibly structure it like:

Movax12 wrote:I would possibly structure it like:

Is there any real difference between checking for < first and then checking for =? Because my current intention was to check for BEQ first, then for BCC. So, is there any actual difference?