diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'doc/nasmdoc.src')
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/nasmdoc.src | 54 |
1 files changed, 31 insertions, 23 deletions
diff --git a/doc/nasmdoc.src b/doc/nasmdoc.src index 6c759c3a..73e6255b 100644 --- a/doc/nasmdoc.src +++ b/doc/nasmdoc.src @@ -1396,9 +1396,9 @@ Some examples: \c mov ax,1001_0011b ; same binary constant -\S{chrconst} \i{Character Constants} +\S{strings} \I{Strings}\i{Character Strings} -A character constant consists of up to four characters enclosed in +A character string consists of up to eight characters enclosed in either single quotes (\c{'...'}), double quotes (\c{"..."}) or backquotes (\c{`...`}). Single or double quotes are equivalent to NASM (except of course that surrounding the constant with single @@ -1406,17 +1406,6 @@ quotes allows double quotes to appear within it and vice versa); the contents of those are represented verbatim. Strings enclosed in backquotes support C-style \c{\\}-escapes for special characters. -A character constant with more than one character will be arranged -with \i{little-endian} order in mind: if you code - -\c mov eax,'abcd' - -then the constant generated is not \c{0x61626364}, but -\c{0x64636261}, so that if you were then to store the value into -memory, it would read \c{abcd} rather than \c{dcba}. This is also -the sense of character constants understood by the Pentium's -\i\c{CPUID} instruction. -\# (see \k{insCPUID}) The following escape sequences are recognized by backquoted strings: @@ -1449,11 +1438,30 @@ UTF-8. For example, the following lines are all equivalent: \c db 0E2h, 098h, 0BAh ; UTF-8 smiley face -\S{strconst} String Constants +\S{chrconst} \i{Character Constants} + +A character constant consists of a string up to eight bytes long, used +in an expression context. It is treated as if it was an integer. + +A character constant with more than one byte will be arranged +with \i{little-endian} order in mind: if you code + +\c mov eax,'abcd' + +then the constant generated is not \c{0x61626364}, but +\c{0x64636261}, so that if you were then to store the value into +memory, it would read \c{abcd} rather than \c{dcba}. This is also +the sense of character constants understood by the Pentium's +\i\c{CPUID} instruction. + + +\S{strconst} \i{Character Constants} -String constants are only acceptable to some pseudo-instructions, -namely the \I\c{DW}\I\c{DD}\I\c{DQ}\I\c{DT}\I\c{DO}\I\c{DY}\i\c{DB} -family and \i\c{INCBIN}. +String constants are character strings used in the context of some +pseudo-instructions, namely the +\I\c{DW}\I\c{DD}\I\c{DQ}\I\c{DT}\I\c{DO}\I\c{DY}\i\c{DB} family and +\i\c{INCBIN} (where it represents a filename.) They are also used by +certain preprocessor directives. A string constant looks like a character constant, only longer. It is treated as a concatenation of maximum-size character constants @@ -1468,12 +1476,12 @@ And the following are also equivalent: \c dd 'nine','char','s' ; becomes three doublewords \c db 'ninechars',0,0,0 ; and really looks like this -Note that when used as operands to the \c{DB} family -pseudo-instructions, quoted strings are treated as a string constants -even if they are short enough to be a character constant, because -otherwise \c{db 'ab'} would have the same effect as \c{db 'a'}, which -would be silly. Similarly, three-character or four-character constants -are treated as strings when they are operands to \c{DW}, and so forth. +Note that when used in a string-supporting context, quoted strings are +treated as a string constants even if they are short enough to be a +character constant, because otherwise \c{db 'ab'} would have the same +effect as \c{db 'a'}, which would be silly. Similarly, three-character +or four-character constants are treated as strings when they are +operands to \c{DW}, and so forth. \S{fltconst} \I{floating-point, constants}Floating-Point Constants |