On 18/05/2012 21:14 , "Kevin Lynch" <[email protected]> wrote:
>Whilst all of these Macro solutions are interesting and would over come
>the problem, this is not the solution I was asking for.
>
>I have had the good furtune to work for many companies and have come
>across this 2nd operand length problem many times.
>
>If I were to use one of these macros to correct such a minor problem it
>would be akin to using a sledge hammer to crack a nut. And would leave a
>maintenance hangover for someone to maintain the macro.
>
>What I'm asking for is for the Assembler Language to have some way to
>indicate that I wish to use the length of the second operand. As I
>explained earlier this would be particularly useful where a long second
>operand literal is being used.
>
>By having such a feature as part of the official Language rather than a
>Macro implementation means it can be used at any site without having to
>install and maintain a relatively complex Macro.
Agreed. I'd suggest that an instruction tag (like the :ASM and :MAC tags
that HLASM already supports) might be a good syntax to allow this. For
example:
MVC DEST,SRCE USE DEST LENGTH
MVC:2 DEST,SRCE USE SRCE LENGTH
This tag could then be allowed on any instruction that has a single length
field. To my eyes, it's a little more intuitively readable than some of
the other suggestions which have been made.
Regards,
Allen Gainsford
