On 2018-07-17, at 18:04:14, Charles Mills wrote:
> One annoying thing also is that it is non-trivial to use a text editor to
> find and convert all
>
> char foo[8];
> to
> uint64_t foo;
>
> It would be easier if the c syntax were char[8] foo; then getting to uint64_t
> foo; would be trivial.
>
It seems the designers were fixated on making declarators look
like member references.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Charles Mills
> Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2018 4:57 PM
>
> Well, the problem of course is that assembler is not strongly typed. You can
> code
>
> BUFFADDR DS CL4 (or even 4C) and it works just fine for assembler, but what
> is poor CDSECT supposed to do.
>
> Last I knew, it did all FD and AD as char[8] which IMHO is pretty d@mned
> stupid. But it is syntactically valid and the storage layout is correct.
>
Subject to bouldary alignment.
A more useful design would code the data area descriptions initially
as C structs and supply an ASTRUCT utility to convert to DSECTS.
I believe I'd name it DESTRUCT.
Or, an assembler programmer with foresight could have employed SETC
symbols such as:
&__ptr32 SETC A
POINTER DC &__ptr32(symbol)
...
Providing some guidance for a CDSECT utility and clarity for the
reader of the source. (IMO, "&__ptr32" conveys better information
than "A". I'm not advocating Hungarian Notation.)
(This solves nothing for legacy source code.)
-- gil
