Info: (as) Statements

Info Catalog
as: Symbol Intro
as: Syntax
as: Constants
as: Statements

 
 3.5 Statements
 ==============
 
 A "statement" ends at a newline character ('\n') or a "line separator
 character".  The line separator character is target specific and
 described in the _Syntax_ section of each target's documentation.  Not
 all targets support a line separator character.  The newline or line
 separator character is considered to be part of the preceding statement.
 Newlines and separators within character constants are an exception:
 they do not end statements.
 
    It is an error to end any statement with end-of-file: the last
 character of any input file should be a newline.
 
    An empty statement is allowed, and may include whitespace.  It is
 ignored.
 
    A statement begins with zero or more labels, optionally followed by a
 key symbol which determines what kind of statement it is.  The key
 symbol determines the syntax of the rest of the statement.  If the
 symbol begins with a dot '.' then the statement is an assembler
 directive: typically valid for any computer.  If the symbol begins with
 a letter the statement is an assembly language "instruction": it
 assembles into a machine language instruction.  Different versions of
 'as' for different computers recognize different instructions.  In fact,
 the same symbol may represent a different instruction in a different
 computer's assembly language.
 
    A label is a symbol immediately followed by a colon (':').
 Whitespace before a label or after a colon is permitted, but you may not
 have whitespace between a label's symbol and its colon.  Labels.
 
    For HPPA targets, labels need not be immediately followed by a colon,
 but the definition of a label must begin in column zero.  This also
 implies that only one label may be defined on each line.
 
      label:     .directive    followed by something
      another_label:           # This is an empty statement.
                 instruction   operand_1, operand_2, ...