Syntax
------
The assembler syntax closely follows the HPPA instruction set
reference manual; assembler directives and general syntax closely
follow the HPPA assembly language reference manual, with a few
noteworthy differences.
First, a colon may immediately follow a label definition. This is
simply for compatibility with how most assembly language programmers
write code.
Some obscure expression parsing problems may affect hand written
code which uses the `spop' instructions, or code which makes significant
use of the `!' line separator.
`as' is much less forgiving about missing arguments and other
similar oversights than the HP assembler. `as' notifies you of missing
arguments as syntax errors; this is regarded as a feature, not a bug.
Finally, `as' allows you to use an external symbol without
explicitly importing the symbol. _Warning:_ in the future this will be
an error for HPPA targets.
Special characters for HPPA targets include:
`;' is the line comment character.
`!' can be used instead of a newline to separate statements.
Since `$' has no special meaning, you may use it in symbol names.