To restate what I'm asking for...
Now that we have 2 and 4-byte immediate values it would make sense
to allow both duplication factor and explicit length for these
Currently the instructions below would fail
AHI 1,2X'FF'
CFI 1,XL4'FF'
Rather more contentious, I agree, is to imply an explicit length
of 1, 2, or 4 bytes to any immediate if there were no dup/explicit
already present
So, CFI 1,C'9' generates X'000000F9' (yuk)
But if it were forced to have an explicit length it would be
interpreted as CL4'9'=X'F9404040' which is what you might expect ???
Ok, I'll be shot down on that one, but I'll still submit it
Steve Thomas---What does "immediate" mean to you ?
It means a DC-type constant of any form that is only constrained by
the length of the immediate according to the instruction
Paul Gilmartin---How do you feel about AHI 1,X'00FFFF'
It exceeds the 2 byte limit and therefore invalid
If the explicit length were to be implemented, then it would
operate as XL2'00FFFF'=X'FFFF'
Yes, AHI 1,65535 is valid
In z390, AHI 1,X'00FFFF' is valid
In DeZhi, it generates but gives a warning
Yes, it's an HLASM problem, some immediates are logical, some are
algebraic, it doesn't really matter how the immediate is generated
provided you get the result you intended
John Ehrman---Immediates are not absolute
Sorry to disagree, 2X'FF' is just as absolute as X'FFFF'
I've always considered the result as definitive, not how we got there
>>>consider AHI 0,(N)X'F'
By that stage in the Assembly, it would be known (I hope) that
AHI takes a 2-byte immediate, if the parsing of the DC-type
immediate exceeded that, it's an error...no acrobatics needed
Chris Smith---Limits ot 16-bit signed...why examples of unsigned
Immediates can be logical or algebraic, compare CFI with CLFI
CLFI 1,-1 is a contradiction, but works !
John Dravnieks---
Read above stuff, AHI 1,X'FFFF' does assemble with a warning
Charles Mills---
Sorry, but an immediate operand is a unit of storage, the fact that
it's embedded into an instruction is irrelevant
I'm sure they'll be more flak flying, but I'll wait a few days for the smoke to
clear before I annoy Sharuff :-)
Mel.
