Shareware Grab Bag/Shareware Grab Bag.iso/007/a86v311a.arc/03OPREQ.DOC

Text File | 1987-09-25 | 12KB | 282 lines

CHAPTER 3   OPERATION AND REQUIREMENTS                    3-1


A86 Program Invocation

To invoke A86, you must provide a program invocation line, either
typed to the console when the DOS command prompt appears, or
included in a batch file.  The program invocation line consists
of the following:

1. The program name A86.

2. The names of the source files you want to assemble.  You may
   use the wild-card delimiters * and ? if you wish, to denote a
   group of source files to be assembled.  A86 will sort all
   matching names into alphabetical order for each wild-card
   specification; so the files will be assembled in the same
   order even if they get jumbled up within a directory.

   A86 identifies the end of the source file names when it sees a
   name with no extension, or a name with the default object-
   extension (COM, BIN or OBJ, as described shortly).  Sorry, you
   cannot have a source file with the default object extension.

3. You may optionally provide the word TO, to separate the source
   file names from the output file names.

4. The name of the output program.  If you do not provide an
   extension, A86 will assume one of the following extensions:

     a. .OBJ if you invoked the +O switch, for linkable-object
        file production.

     b. .BIN if there is no +O switch, but there is an ORG 0 in
        your program.

     c. .COM otherwise.

   If you want your program file to have no extension, you end
   the file name with a period.

   You have the option to omit both the program file name and the
   symbol table file name from the invocation.  If you do so, A86
   will output the program source.COM (or source.OBJ or
   source.BIN) and the symbol table source.SYM; where "source" is
   a name derived from the list of source files, according to the
   rules described in the section "Strategies for Source File
   Maintenance" later in this chapter.

5. The name of the symbol-table file.  If you do not provide an
   extension, A86 will assume that you want the extension .SYM.
   If you want your symbol table file to have no extension, you
   end the file name with a period.

   You have the option to omit the name of the symbol table file.
   If you do so, A86 will use the same root as the output program
   name, with a .SYM extension.  If you desire no symbol table
   file, specify the +S switch in your invocation line or A86
   environment variable.
                                                          3-2
Assembler Switches

In addition to input and output file names, you may intersperse
assembler switch-settings anywhere after the A86 program name.
They are all acted upon immediately, no matter where they are on
the command line.  Some of the switches are discussed in more
detail elsewhere; I'll summarize them here:

+C  causes the assembler to output symbol names with lower-case
    letters to its OBJ and SYM files.  The case of letters is
    still ignored during assembly.  I output the name as it
    appears in the last PUBLIC or EXTRN directive containing it;
    if there is no such directive, I use the first occurrance
    of the symbol to control which letters are output lower-case.
    (+C duplicates Microsoft MASM's /mx switch.)

+c  causes the assembler to consider the case of letters within
    all non-built-in symbols as significant both during assembly
    and for output.  Thus, for example, you can define different
    symbols X and x.  (+c duplicates MASM's /ml switch.)

+D  causes the default base for numeric constants to be decimal,
    even if the constants have leading zeroes.

-D  causes the default base to be hexadecimal if there is a
    leading zero; decimal otherwise.

+E  causes the error-message-augmented source file to be written
    to yourname.ERR within the current directory, in all cases.
    With +E, A86 will never rewrite your original source file.

-E  causes A86 to insert error messages into your source file,
    whenever the file is in the current directory.  If the file
    is not in the current directory, A86 write an ERR file no
    matter what the E-switch setting is.

+F  causes A86 to generate the 287-form of floating-point
    instructions (no implicit FWAIT bytes are generated before
    the instructions).  This mode can also be specified in the
    program with the .287 directive.

+f  causes A86 to support emulation of the 8087.  When A86 sees a
    floating-point instruction, it generates external references
    to be resolved by the standard emulation library (provided by
    Microsoft, Borland, etc.).  When you LINK your program to the
    emulation library, the floating-point instructions are
    emulated by software.  NOTE you must be assembling to a
    linkable OBJ file for this mode to have effect; otherwise, +f
    is ignored.

-F  causes emulation and default-287 to be disabled.  You'll
    still get 287 generation if there is a .287 directive in your
    program.
                                                          3-3
+L  causes A86 to generate a longer (3-byte) instruction form
    for an unconditional JMP instruction to a forward-reference
    local labels, e.g. JMP >L1.  The code will usually be longer
    than necessary, but you'll be spared having to occasionally
    go back and code an explicit JMP LONG >L1.

-L  causes A86 to generate the more efficient 2-byte form for
    JMP >L1.

+O  causes A86 to produce a linkable .OBJ file when the output
    file name extension is not explicitly given.

-O  causes A86 to produce an executable .COM file when the output
    file name extension is not explicitly given.

+S  suppresses the creation of the symbol-table (.SYM) file in
    normal (no errors) assembly.  This is overridden if you give
    an explicit symbols-file name in the invocation line.

-S  causes the symbol-table file to be created in all cases.

+X  causes A86 to require that undefined names be explicitly
    declared with an EXTRN when A86 is producing a linkable .OBJ
    file.  The X switch has no effect when A86 is making a .COM
    file.

-X  causes A86 to quietly assume that all undefined names are
    valid external references.

The default setting for all the switches is "minus".  Multiple
switches can be specified with a single sign; e.g. +OX is the
same as +O+X.



The A86 Environment Variable

To allow you to customize A86, the assembler examines the
MS-DOS environment variable named "A86" when it is invoked.  If
there is such a variable, its contents are inserted before the
invocation command tail, as if you had typed them yourself.

For example, if you execute the command SET A86=+OX while in DOS
(typically in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file run when the computer is
started), then the O and X siwtches will be "plus", unless
overridden with a "minus" setting in the command line.

You may also include one or more file names in the A86
environment variable.  Those files will always be assembled
first, before the files you specify on the command line.  This
allows you to set up a library of macro definitions, which will
always be automatically available to your programs.  Thus, for
example, the DOS command  SET A86=C:\A86\MACDEF.8 +OX  will cause
both the O and X switches to default ON, but will also cause the
file MACDEF.8 of subdirectory A86 of drive C to always be
assembled.
                                                          3-4
Using Standard Input as a Command Tail

The following feature is a bit advanced.  If you're not familiar
with the practice of redirecting standard input, you may safely
skip this section.

A86 can also be configured to take its command arguments from
standard input, in addition to the invoaction command tail or the
A86 environment variable.  This allows A86 to be used in those
menu-driven systems that don't generate command tails for
programs.  It also allows other programs to create lists of files
to be assembled, then "pipe" the list to A86.

Here's how the feature works: when the command argument A86 is an
ampersand &, A86 will prompt for standard input.  If the
ampersand is seen but there are other things following it, the
ampersand is ignored.

For example, you can place a list of file names and switch
settings into a file called FILELIST.  You can then invoke the
assembler via

A86 <FILELIST &

which will cause the contents of the FILELIST file to be used as
a command line.

You may place an ampersand at the end of your A86 environment
variable.  If you do so, then A86 will prompt for file names
whenever it is invoked without any command arguments (you type
A86 followed immediately by the ENTER key to the MS-DOS prompt).
This is the mode used if you have a menu system that can't
generate an invocation command tail.

Note: when you redirect standard input so that it comes from a
file, A86 will read all the lines of the file (up to a limit of
1023 bytes), and substitute spaces for the line breaks.  Thus you
may give the file names on individual lines, for readability.
However, if the feature is invoked manually (no redirection), so
that you are typing in the line after the prompt, A86 will take
the first line only.  You need to give all your switches and
files on that one line.



Strategies for Source File Maintenance

A86 encourages modular programming, by letting you break your
source into separate files, with complete impunity.  A86 has no
concern whatsoever for file breaks-- it treats the sequence of
files as a single source code stream.

You should consider one or more of the following strategies,
which I have adopted in my source file management:
                                                          3-5
1. I name all my A86 source files with the same extension, which
   is found on no other files. The particular extension I have
   chosen is ".8". I did not choose the more common .ASM; because
   I have a few source-files designed for MSDOS's assembler.  If
   you don't like .8, I would suggest .A86.

2. I keep a separate sub-directory on my hard disk for each
   multi-source-file A86 program I have.  Then the simple command
   "A86 *.8" performs the assembly for the current directory's
   program.

3. I exploit the fact that A86 expands wild-cards into
   alphabetical order.  Whenever I want a source-file to be
   assembled first (e.g., when it contains variable
   declarations), I append a decimal digit to the start of the
   file name: 0 for the first file, 1 for the second, etc., for
   however many files that need to be explicitly ordered.  If a
   file needs to come last, I append a "Z" to the start of the
   file name.

   To accommodate this strategy, I have programmed A86 to a
   somewhat complicated algorithm for determining the default
   output file-name.  I use the name of the first source file;
   but I truncate the first character if it is a decimal digit.
   However, you may have a general-purpose file that must come
   first; so I have provided the following exception: if you have
   a source-file whose name begins with the digit "9", that name
   (without the 9) is used.  If you don't like this, you can
   always explicitly give the program name you want: "A86 *.8
   MYPROG".



System Requirements for A86

A86 requires MS-DOS V2.00 or later.  No BIOS or lower-level calls
are made by A86, so A86 should run on any MS-DOS machine.  Please
let me know if you find this not to be the case.

To achieve its blazing speed, A86 is something of a memory hog.
A86 allocates separate segments for itself, its stack, its source
file, and its output file.  A86 itself now occupies about 20K; it
always takes a full 64K for the stack.  A86 splits the remaining
available memory between its source file and its output file.  It
allocates a minimum of 8K apiece; and a maximum of 64K apiece.
Thus A86 requires at least 100K; but it will consume up to 212K if
available.

Careful reading of the above paragraph reveals that in a small-
memory system A86 severely limits the size of source files.  But
remember that this doesn't hurt you badly: you can split up
source files with impunity.  A86 assembles a sequence of files as
if it were a single source stream (similar to the INCLUDE
facility of other assemblers).