A direct assignment statement equates a symbol to a specific value. Unlike a symbol that you use as a label, you can redefine a symbol defined with a direct assignment statement as many times as you want. FORMATS symbol=expression symbol==expression symbol=quoted-literal symbol A user-defined symbol. expression An expression that does not contain any undefined symbols or forward references. The result must be either an absolute or relocatable value, whose value can be determined at the current point in the assembly. This form defines a numeric symbol. The format with a single equal sign (=) defines a local symbol, and the format with a double equal sign (==) defines a global symbol. The following three syntactic rules apply to direct assignment statements: o An equal sign (=) or double equal sign (==) must separate the symbol from the expression that defines its value. Spaces preceding or following the direct assignment operators have no significance in the resulting value. o Only one symbol can be defined in a single direct assignment statement. o A direct assignment statement can be followed only by a comment field. For best results, Digital recommends you place the symbol in a direct assignment statement in the label field. For example: A == 1 ; The symbol 'A' is globally ; equated to the value 1 B = A@5 ; The symbol 'B' is equated ; to 1@5 or 32(dec) C = 127*10 ; The symbol 'C' is equated ; to 1270(dec) D = ^X100/^X10 ; The symbol 'D' is equated ; to 10(hex) quoted-literal A literal within double quotes. This form defines a lexical string symbol. You can only use lexical string symbols with lexical string operators.