Ax51 User's Guide

Expression Classes

Expressions are assigned classes based on the operands that are used. The following classes apply to expressions:

Typically, expressions are assigned the class NUMBER because they are composed only of numeric operands. You may assign a class to an expression using a class operand. An address symbol value is automatically assigned the class of the segment where it is defined. When a value has a class, a few rules apply to how expressions are formed:

1. The result of a unary operation has the same class as its operand.
2. The result of all binary operations except + and – will be a NUMBER type.
3. If only one of the operands of an addition or subtraction operation has a class, the result will have that class. If both operands have a class, the result will be a NUMBER.

This means that a class value (i.e. an addresses symbol) plus or minus a number (or a number plus a class value) give a value with class.

Examples

data_address + 10                               gives a data_address value
10 + edata_address                              gives an edata_address value
(data_address - data_address)                   gives a classless number
code_address + (data_address - data_address)    gives a code_address value

Expressions that have a type of NUMBER can be used virtually anywhere. Expressions that have a class can only be used where a class of that type is valid.