Chapter 8. Assembler Directives

49

8.39.

.float flonums

This directive assembles zero or more flonums, separated by commas. It has the same effect as

.single

. The exact kind of floating point numbers emitted depends on how

as

is configured. Chapter

9 Machine Dependent Features.

8.40.

.func name[,label]

.func

emits debugging information to denote function

name

, and is ignored unless the file is as 

sembled with debugging enabled. Only

 gstabs[+]

is currently supported.

label

is the entry point

of the function and if omitted

name

prepended with the

leading char

is used.

leading char

is

usually

_

or nothing, depending on the target. All functions are currently defined to have

void

return

type. The function must be terminated with

.endfunc

.

8.41.

.global symbol

,

.globl symbol

.global

makes the symbol visible to

ld

. If you define

symbol

in your partial program, its value is

made available to other partial programs that are linked with it. Otherwise,

symbol

takes its attributes

from a symbol of the same name from another file linked into the same program.

Both spellings (

.globl

and

.global

) are accepted, for compatibility with other assemblers.

On the HPPA,

.global

is not always enough to make it accessible to other partial programs. You

may need the HPPA only

.EXPORT

directive as well. Section 19.5 HPPA Assembler Directives.

8.42.

.hidden names

This is one of the ELF visibility directives. The other two are

.internal

(Section 8.49

.internal

names

) and

.protected

(Section 8.70

.protected names

).

This directive overrides the named symbols default visibility (which is set by their binding: local,

global or weak). The directive sets the visibility to

hidden

which means that the symbols are not

visible to other components. Such symbols are always considered to be

protected

as well.

8.43.

.hword expressions

This expects zero or more

expressions

, and emits a 16 bit number for each.

This directive is a synonym for

.short

; depending on the target architecture, it may also be a syn 

onym for

.word

.

8.44.

.ident

This directive is used by some assemblers to place tags in object files.

as

simply accepts the directive

for source file compatibility with such assemblers, but does not actually emit anything for it.

8.45.

.if absolute expression

.if

marks the beginning of a section of code which is only considered part of the source program

being assembled if the argument (which must be an

absolute expression

) is non zero. The end

of the conditional section of code must be marked by

.endif

(Section 8.30

.endif

); optionally,

you may include code for the alternative condition, flagged by

.else

(Section 8.25

.else

). If you