Assembler Language Reference

.dsect Pseudo-op

Purpose

Identifies the beginning or the continuation of a dummy control section.

Syntax

Description

The .dsect pseudo-op identifies the beginning or the continuation of a dummy control section. Actual data declared in a dummy control section is ignored; only the location counter is incremented. All labels in a dummy section are considered to be offsets relative to the beginning of the dummy section. A dsect that has the same name as a previous dsect is a continuation of that dummy control section.

The .dsect pseudo-op can declare a data template that can then be used to map out a block of storage. The .using pseudo-op is involved in doing this.

Parameters

Examples

1. The following example demonstrates the use of the .dsect pseudo-op:

           .dsect datal
   d1:     .long 0
   
                           # 1 Fullwordd2:     .short 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0       # 10 Halfwords
   d3:     .byte 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0      # 15 bytes
   
           .align 3                   #Align to a double word.
   d4:     .space 64                  #Space 64 bytes
   
   .csect main[PR]
   .using datal,7
   l 5,d2
   
   # This will actually load
   # the contents of the
   # effective address calculated
   # by adding the offset d2 to
   # that in GPR 7 into GPR 5.

2. The following example contains several source programs which together show the use of .dsect and .using pseudo-ops in implicit-based addressing.
   1. Source program foo_pm.s:

              .csect   foo_data[RW]
              .long   0xaa
              .short  10
              .short   20
              .globl   .foo_pm[PR]
              .csect   .foo_pm[PR]
              .extern  l1
              .using  TOC[TC0], 2
              l    7, T.foo_data
              b   l1
              br
              .toc
      T.foo_data:   .tc  foo_data[TC], foo_data[RW]

   2. Source program bar_pm.s:

              .csect   bar_data[RW]
              .long   0xbb
              .short  30
              .short   40
              .globl   .bar_pm[PR]
              .csect   .bar_pm[PR]
              .extern  l1
              .using TOC[TC0], 2
              l    7, T.bar_data
              b  l1
              br
              .toc
      T.bar_data:   .tc  bar_data[TC], bar_data[RW]

   3. Source program c1_s:

              .dsect   data1
      d1:     .long   0
      d2:     .short   0
      d3:     .short   0
              .globl   .c1[PR]
              .csect   .c1[PR]
              .globl   l1
      l1:     .using   data1, 7
              l   5, d1
              stu 5, t_data[TD](2)
              br                  # this br is necessary.
                                  # without it, prog hangs
              .toc
              .comm  t_data[TD],4

   4. Source for main program mm.c:

      extern  long  t_data;
      main()
      {
           int  sw;
           sw = 2;
           if ( sw == 2 ) {
             foo_pm();
             printf ( "when sw is 2, t_data is 0x%x\n", t_data );
           }
           sw = 1;
           if ( sw == 1 ) {
             bar_pm();
             printf ( "when sw is 1, t_data is 0x%x\n", t_data );
           }
      }

   5. Instructions for creating the executable file from the source:

      as -o foo_pm.o foo_pm.s
      as -o bar_pm.o bar_pm.s
      as -o c1.o c1.s
      cc -o mm mm.c foo_pm.o bar_pm.o c1.o

   6. The following is printed if mm is executed:

      when sw is 2, t_data is 0xaa
      when sw is 1, t_data is 0xbb

Related Information

Pseudo-ops Overview.

The .csect pseudo-op, .using pseudo-op.