Files
rgbds/doc/asm/macro.htm
2009-11-08 18:47:28 -07:00

61 lines
3.4 KiB
HTML
Raw Blame History

This file contains ambiguous Unicode characters
This file contains Unicode characters that might be confused with other characters. If you think that this is intentional, you can safely ignore this warning. Use the Escape button to reveal them.
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8">
<title>xAsm MACRO/ENDM</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../style.css">
</head>
<body>
<h1>MACRO, ENDM</h1>
<p>One of the best features of an assembler is the ability to write macros for it. Macros also provide a method of passing arguments to them and they can then react to the input using IF-constructs.</p>
<pre>MyMacro: MACRO
ld a,80
call MyFunc
ENDM</pre>
<p>The above example is a very simple macro. You execute the macro by typing its name.</p>
<pre> add a,b
ld sp,hl
MyMacro ;This will be expanded
sub a,87</pre>
<p>When the assembler meets MyMacro it will insert the macrodefinition (the text enclosed in <b>MACRO/ENDM</b>).</p>
<p id="labelsuffix">Suppose your macro contains a loop.</p>
<pre>LoopyMacro: MACRO
xor a,a
.loop ld [hl+],a
dec c
jr nz,.loop
ENDM</pre>
<p>This is fine. That is, if you only use the macro once per <a href="labels.htm">scope</a>. To get around this problem there is a special label string equate called <b>\@</b> that you can append to your labels and it will then expand to a unique string.</p>
<p><b>\@</b> also works in <a href="rept.htm">REPT-blocks</a> should you have any loops there.</p>
<pre>LoopyMacro: MACRO
xor a,a
.loop\@ ld [hl+],a
dec c
jr nz,.loop\@
ENDM</pre>
<h2>Arguments</h2>
<p>Id like <i>LoopyMacro</i> a lot better if I didnt have to pre-load the registers with values and <em>then</em> call it. What Id like is the ability to pass it arguments and it then loaded the registers itself.</p>
<p>And I can do that. In macros you can get the arguments by using the special macro string equates <b>\1</b> through <b>\9</b>, <b>\1</b> being the first argument specified on the calling of the macro.</p>
<pre>LoopyMacro: MACRO
ld hl,\1
ld c,\2
xor a,a
.loop\@ ld [hl+],a
dec c
jr nz,.loop\@
ENDM</pre>
<p>Now I can call the macro specifying two arguments. The first being the address and the second being a bytecount. The macro will then reset all bytes in this range.</p>
<pre> LoopyMacro MyVars,54</pre>
<p>You can specify up to nine arguments when calling a macro. Arguments are passed as string equates. Theres no need to enclose them in quotes. Parameter passing has changed a bit since v1.03 in that an expression will not be evaluated first but passed directly. This means that its probably a very good idea to use brackets around \1\9 if you perform further calculations on them. For instance if you pass 1+2 as the first argument and then do <code> PRINTV \1*2</code>
you will get the value 5 on screen and not 6 as you might have expected.</p>
<p>Note that a colon (:) following the macro-name is required. Macros can't be exported or imported. It's valid to call a macro from a macro (yes, even the same one).</p>
<h1>See also:</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="shift.htm">SHIFT</a>
</ul>
<hr>
<p>Last updated 02 July 1997 by <a href="mailto:surfsmurf@matilde.demon.co.uk">Carsten Sorensen</a></p>
</body>
</html>