MACRO-64 source statements can have a maximum of four fields, as
follows:
o Label field-Symbolically defines a location in a program.
o Operator field-Specifies the action to be performed by the
statement; this can be an instruction, an assembler directive,
or a macro call.
o Operand field-Contains the instruction operands or the
assembler directive arguments or the macro arguments.
o Comment field-Contains a comment that explains the meaning of
the statement; this does not affect program execution.
You can separate statement fields by either a space or a tab
stop, but Digital recommends that you format statements with the
Tab key to ensure consistency and clarity.
Table 1 Using Tab Stops in Statement Fields
Column
in
Which
Field
Field Begins Tab Stops to Reach Column
Label 1 0
Operator 9 1
Operand 17 2
Comment 41 5
The following example shows a typical source statement:
EXP: .BLKL 50 ; Table stores expected values
Rules for Coding Source Statements
The following rules apply for coding source statements:
o You can continue a single statement on several lines by
using a hyphen (-) as the last nonblank character before
the comment field, or at the end of line (when there is no
comment).
o In most cases, you can continue a statement at any point. If a
symbol name is continued and the first character on the second
line is a tab or a blank, the symbol name is terminated at
that character.
o Blank lines are legal, but they have no significance in the
source program except that they terminate a continued line.
The following sections describe each of the statement fields in
detail.
Additional Information:
explode
extract