gasp

Section: GNU Development Tools (1)
Updated: September 1999

NAME

gasp - a preprocessor for assembly programs

SYNOPSIS

gasp: [-a|--alternate] [-c CHAR | --commentchar CHAR] [-d|--debug] [-h|--help] [-M|--mri] [-o OUTFILE | --output OUTFILE] [-p|--print] [-s|--copysource] [-u|--unreasonable] [-v|--version] INFILE ...

DESCRIPTION

The primary purpose of the GNU assembler is to assemble the output of other programs--notably compilers. When you have to hand-code specialized routines in assembly, that means the GNU assembler is an unfriendly processor: it has no directives for macros, conditionals, or many other conveniences that you might expect.

In some cases you can simply use the C preprocessor, or a generalized preprocessor like M4; but this can be awkward, since none of these things are designed with assembly in mind.

gasp fills this need. It is expressly designed to provide the facilities you need with hand-coded assembly code. Implementing it as a preprocessor, rather than part of the assembler, allows the maximum flexibility: you can use it with hand-coded assembly, without paying a penalty of added complexity in the assembler you use for compiler output.

INFILE... are the files to be preprocessed.

OPTIONS

The simplest way to use GASP is to run it as a filter and assemble its output. In Unix and its ilk, you can do this, for example:

$ gasp prog.asm | as -o prog.o

Naturally, there are also a few command-line options to allow you to request variations on this basic theme. Here is the full set of possibilities for the GASP command line.

-a

--alternate

Use alternative macro syntax. *Note Alternate macro syntax: Alternate, for a discussion of how this syntax differs from the default GASP syntax.

-c CHAR

--commentchar CHAR

Use CHAR as the comment character. The default comment character is `!'. For example, to use a semicolon as the comment character, specify `-c ';'' on the GASP command line. Since assembler command characters often have special significance to command shells, it is a good idea to quote or escape CHAR when you specify a comment character.

For the sake of simplicity, all examples in this manual use the default comment character `!'.

-d

--debug

Show debugging statistics. In this version of GASP, this option produces statistics about the string buffers that GASP allocates internally. For each defined buffersize S, GASP shows the number of strings N that it allocated, with a line like this:

strings size S : N

GASP displays these statistics on the standard error stream, when done preprocessing.

-h

--help

Display a summary of the GASP command line options.

-M

--mri

Use MRI compatibility mode. Using this option causes GASP to accept the syntax and pseudo-ops used by the Microtec Research `ASM68K' assembler.

-o OUTFILE

--output OUTFILE

`-o OUTFILE' `--output OUTFILE' Write the output in a file called OUTFILE. If you do not use the `-o' option, GASP writes its output on the standard output stream.

-p

--print

Print line numbers. GASP obeys this option _only_ if you also specify `-s' to copy source lines to its output. With `-s -p', GASP displays the line number of each source line copied (immediately after the comment character at the beginning of the line).

-s

--copysource

Copy the source lines to the output file. Use this option to see the effect of each preprocessor line on the GASP output. GASP places a comment character (`!' by default) at the beginning of each source line it copies, so that you can use this option and still assemble the result.

-u

--unreasonable

Bypass "unreasonable expansion" limit. Since you can define GASP macros inside other macro definitions, the preprocessor normally includes a sanity check. If your program requires more than 1,000 nested expansions, GASP normally exits with an error message. Use this option to turn off this check, allowing unlimited nested expansions.

-v

--version

Display the GASP version number.

INFILE ...

The input file names. You must specify at least one input file; if you specify more, GASP preprocesses them all, concatenating the output in the order you list the INFILE arguments.

Mark the end of each input file with the preprocessor command `.END'.