assembly - Confused by [ebp-0xc] instead of [ebp-4] in Art of Exploitation example

Question

I am reading the book Hacking: The Art of Exploitation, 2nd Edition and in the simple C program

#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
    int i;  
    for (i = 0; i < 10; i++)
    {
        puts("Hello, world!
");
    }
    return 0;
}

The book lists that the gdb debug will modify the ebp register first:

(gdb) x/i $eip 0x8048384 <main+16>: mov DWORD PTR [ebp-4],0x0

As it explains that This assembly instruction will move the value of 0 into memory located at the address stored in the EBP register, minus 4. This is where the C vari- able i is stored in memory; i was declared as an integer that uses 4 bytes of memory on the x86 processor

This makes sense for me, but when I test the exactly step on my "very old I386" Linux Laptop, here is what I got:

(gdb) x/i $eip => 0x4011b6 <main+29>:   mov    DWORD PTR [ebp-0xc],0x0

So on my laptop, it shows [ebp-0xc], instead of [ebp-4]. Based on my understanding, "0xc" as Hex will be 12, so it will be 12 byes? If so, why?

Here is the whole assemble dump on my laptop for this simple program (gdb) disassemble main

Dump of assembler code for function main:
   0x00401199 <+0>: lea    ecx,[esp+0x4]
   0x0040119d <+4>: and    esp,0xfffffff0
   0x004011a0 <+7>: push   DWORD PTR [ecx-0x4]
   0x004011a3 <+10>:    push   ebp
   0x004011a4 <+11>:    mov    ebp,esp
   0x004011a6 <+13>:    push   ebx
   0x004011a7 <+14>:    push   ecx
   0x004011a8 <+15>:    sub    esp,0x10
   0x004011ab <+18>:    call   0x4010a0 <__x86.get_pc_thunk.bx>
   0x004011b0 <+23>:    add    ebx,0x2e50
=> 0x004011b6 <+29>:    mov    DWORD PTR [ebp-0xc],0x0
   0x004011bd <+36>:    jmp    0x4011d5 <main+60>
   0x004011bf <+38>:    sub    esp,0xc
   0x004011c2 <+41>:    lea    eax,[ebx-0x1ff8]
   0x004011c8 <+47>:    push   eax
   0x004011c9 <+48>:    call   0x401030 <puts@plt>
   0x004011ce <+53>:    add    esp,0x10
   0x004011d1 <+56>:    add    DWORD PTR [ebp-0xc],0x1
   0x004011d5 <+60>:    cmp    DWORD PTR [ebp-0xc],0x9
   0x004011d9 <+64>:    jle    0x4011bf <main+38>
   0x004011db <+66>:    mov    eax,0x0
   0x004011e0 <+71>:    lea    esp,[ebp-0x8]
   0x004011e3 <+74>:    pop    ecx
   0x004011e4 <+75>:    pop    ebx
   0x004011e5 <+76>:    pop    ebp
   0x004011e6 <+77>:    lea    esp,[ecx-0x4]
   0x004011e9 <+80>:    ret    
End of assembler dump.

Answer 1

sub esp,0x10

allocated 16 bytes (four registers worth) of space on the stack for variables and other stuff.

mov DWORD PTR [ebp-0xc],0x0

appears to be the first reference to slot ebp-0xc, and it's being initialized to zero. After looking at cmp DWORD PTR [ebp-0xc],0x9 at main+60 I'm certain this is i = 0 from the initialization section of the for loop.

The compiler can put variables where it will, and while deterministic it changes with patch versions of the compiler.