view docs/lwasm.txt @ 304:d85d173ba120 ccdev

Checkpoint lwcc development - preprocessor is runnable but nonfunctional The preprocessor is currently runnable but doesn't actually do anything useful. This is just a checkpoint.
author William Astle <lost@l-w.ca>
date Tue, 17 Sep 2013 19:33:41 -0600
parents 2c24602be78f
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LWASM 2.0
=========

LWASM is a cross-assembler for the MC6809 and HD6309 CPUs. It should
assemble most reasonable EDTASM compatible source code. This document is not
intended to teach assembly language for these CPUs but rather to document
the behaviour of LWASM.


TARGETS
-------

LWASM supports several targets for assembly. These are decb, raw, and obj.

The raw target generates a raw binary output. This is useful for building
ROMs and other items that are not intended to be loaded by any kind of
loader. In this mode, the ORG directive is merely advisory and does not
affect the output except for the addresses symbols are defined to have.

The decb target generates output that can be loaded with the CLOADM or LOADM
commands in Color Basic. There will be approximately one segment in the
output file for every ORG statement after which any code is emitted. (That
is, two ORG statements in a row will not generate two output segments.)
This is approximately equivalent to running A/AO in EDTASM.

The obj target generates output that is intended to be linked later with
LWLINK. This target disallows the use of ORG for defining anything other
than constants. In this target, source files consist of a number of sections
(SECTION/ENDSECTION). Nothing outside of a section is permitted to cause any
output at all. Use of an ORG statement within a section is an error. This
target also permits tagging symbols for export (EXPORT) and marking a symbol
as externally defined (IMPORT/EXTERN). The linker will resolve any external
references at link time. Additionally, any inter-section references will be
resolved by the linker. All code in each section is assembled with an
implicit origin of 0. SETDP has no effect because the assembler has no idea
what address the linker will assign to the code when it is linked. Any
direct addressing modes will default to extended to allow for the linker to
perform relocations. Intersegment references and external references will
use 16 bit relative addressing but intrasegment internal references may use
8 bit relative addressing. Forced 8 bit direct modes are probably an error
but are permitted on the theory that the programmer might know something the
assembler doesn't.