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.\" gasp man page by Christopher C. Chimelis, chris@debian.org
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.\" for binutils 2.9.5.0.12 17 Sep 1999
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.TH gasp 1 "September 1999" Debian "GNU Development Tools"
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gasp \- a preprocessor for assembly programs
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.RB "[\|" \-a | \-\-alternate "\|]"
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.RB " | " "\-\-commentchar\ "\c
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.RB "[\|" \-d | \-\-debug "\|]"
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.RB "[\|" \-h | \-\-help "\|]"
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.RB "[\|" \-M | \-\-mri "\|]"
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.RB " | " "\-\-output\ "\c
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.RB "[\|" \-p | \-\-print "\|]"
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.RB "[\|" \-s | \-\-copysource "\|]"
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.RB "[\|" \-u | \-\-unreasonable "\|]"
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.RB "[\|" \-v | \-\-version "\|]"
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The primary purpose of the GNU assembler is to assemble the output of
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other programs--notably compilers. When you have to hand-code
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specialized routines in assembly, that means the GNU assembler is an
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unfriendly processor: it has no directives for macros, conditionals, or
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many other conveniences that you might expect.
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In some cases you can simply use the C preprocessor, or a generalized
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preprocessor like M4; but this can be awkward, since none of these
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things are designed with assembly in mind.
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fills this need. It is expressly designed to provide the
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facilities you need with hand-coded assembly code. Implementing it as a
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preprocessor, rather than part of the assembler, allows the maximum
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flexibility: you can use it with hand-coded assembly, without paying a
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penalty of added complexity in the assembler you use for compiler
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are the files to be preprocessed.
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The simplest way to use GASP is to run it as a filter and assemble
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its output. In Unix and its ilk, you can do this, for example:
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$ gasp prog.asm | as -o prog.o
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Naturally, there are also a few command-line options to allow you to
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request variations on this basic theme. Here is the full set of
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possibilities for the GASP command line.
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Use alternative macro syntax. *Note Alternate macro syntax:
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Alternate, for a discussion of how this syntax differs from the
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.BI "\-\-commentchar " CHAR
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Use CHAR as the comment character. The default comment character
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is `!'. For example, to use a semicolon as the comment character,
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specify `-c ';'' on the GASP command line. Since assembler
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command characters often have special significance to command
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shells, it is a good idea to quote or escape CHAR when you specify
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For the sake of simplicity, all examples in this manual use the
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default comment character `!'.
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Show debugging statistics. In this version of GASP, this option
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produces statistics about the string buffers that GASP allocates
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internally. For each defined buffersize S, GASP shows the number
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of strings N that it allocated, with a line like this:
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GASP displays these statistics on the standard error stream, when
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Display a summary of the GASP command line options.
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Use MRI compatibility mode. Using this option causes GASP to
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accept the syntax and pseudo-ops used by the Microtec Research
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.BI "\-\-output " OUTFILE
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Write the output in a file called OUTFILE. If you do not use the
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`-o' option, GASP writes its output on the standard output stream.
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Print line numbers. GASP obeys this option _only_ if you also
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specify `-s' to copy source lines to its output. With `-s -p',
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GASP displays the line number of each source line copied
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(immediately after the comment character at the beginning of the
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Copy the source lines to the output file. Use this option to see
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the effect of each preprocessor line on the GASP output. GASP
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places a comment character (`!' by default) at the beginning of
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each source line it copies, so that you can use this option and
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still assemble the result.
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Bypass "unreasonable expansion" limit. Since you can define GASP
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macros inside other macro definitions, the preprocessor normally
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includes a sanity check. If your program requires more than 1,000
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nested expansions, GASP normally exits with an error message. Use
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this option to turn off this check, allowing unlimited nested
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Display the GASP version number.
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The input file names. You must specify at least one input file;
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if you specify more, GASP preprocesses them all, concatenating the
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output in the order you list the INFILE arguments.
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Mark the end of each input file with the preprocessor command
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The GNU Binary Utilities\c
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\&, Roland H. Pesch (October 1991);
added
removed
debian/gasp.1
