The MASM Forum Archive 2004 to 2012

i'm new to asm. now learning the project that require me to correct the code of letters counting. so the problem is everytime the counted total from the program gives the actual number of characters entered with 2 more digits. that means, if key-in: will, it should shows 4 letters, but instead of it, it shows 6 digits. may i know the exact root of this problem. would it be the counting of another 2 hidden characters of ASCII of the "enter" function?

the code as follow:

.Model small
.386
.Stack 300h
.Data
   Prompt db 13, 10, 'Total entered characters ','$'
   filehold_1 dw ?
   by_r dw ?
   by_r1 dw ?
   char db 400 dup(?)
   chinput db 400 dup(?)
   counter dw ?
   counter1 dw ?
   Prompt1 db 13, 10, 'Enter your words :', '$'

.Code
Start:

;code to input from keyboard
   push ax         ;preserve used
   push dx         ; register
   mov ah, 9      ;request display
   lea dx, Prompt1       ;of user prompt
   int 21h
   pop dx         ;restore
   pop ax         ;register

;code to read from keyboard and store in string
   mov ax, seg chinput
   mov ds, ax
   mov dx, offset chinput
   mov ah, 3fh
   mov cx, 400
   mov bx, filehold_1
   int 21h
   mov by_r1, ax
   jc RError

;code to count the number of characters from keyboard
   mov cx, by_r1      ;set counter to number of bytes
   mov ax, seg chinput   ; initialize ds to string segment
   mov ds, ax
   mov bx, 0      ;set bx to zero
   mov di, 0         ;set di to zero

char_begin1:
   cmp chinput [di],' '       ;if character = space
   je char_nextchar      ;not read next character
   inc bx         ; increase number of char by 1

char_nextchar:
   inc di
   loop char_begin1      ;go back to char_begin1 function
   mov counter1, bx

;code to print total number of characters from keyboard
   mov ax, seg Prompt1
   mov ds, ax
   mov ah, 9
   mov dx, offset Prompt1
   int 21h         ;print the result

   mov ax, counter1
   push ax         ;save bx, cx and dx
   push dx
   push cx
   push bx
   xor cx, cx
   mov bx, 10      ;load 10

papx1:
   xor dx, dx
   div bx
   push dx
   inc cx
   or ax, ax         ;test
   jnz papx1      ;if not zero

papx2:
   pop dx
   mov ah, 6
   add dl, 30h
   int 21h
   loop papx2      ;repeat
   pop bx         ; restore bx, cx, and dx
   pop cx
   pop dx
   pop ax

BOpen:
RError:
CError:

.exit
end start


thanx your help!

wcks48,
The Enter key is actually a 2 key sequence because two things happen, a linefeed and a carriage return.  The values, in decimal, are 13 and 10.

Paul

so that's the only way to fix the problem right?

i would avoid the carriage return and line feed. thanx.