HLASM Language Reference

Terms, Literals, and Expressions
alignment and is the value assigned to the symbol, if present, in the name field
of the statement.
4. After assembling the instruction or constant, the assembler increments the
location counter by the length of the assembled data to indicate the next
available location.
These rules are shown below:
Location in
Source
Hexadecimal
Statements
4 DONE DC CL3'ABC'
7 BEFORE EQU
8 DURING DC F'2'
C AFTER EQU
1 NEXT DS D
You can specify multiple location counters for each control section in a source
module; for more details about the location counter setting in control sections, see
“Location Counter Setting” on page 61.
Maximum Location Counter Value: The assembler carries internal location
| counter values as 4-byte (31-bit unsigned) values. When you specify the NOGOFF
assembler option, the assembler uses only the low-order 3 bytes for the location
| counter, and prints only the low-order 3 bytes in the assembly source and object
| code listing if the LIST(121) option is active. All four bytes are displayed if the
| LIST(133) option is active. In this case the maximum valid location counter value is
2 24 −1.
| When you specify the GOFF assembler option, the assembler requires
| the LIST(133) option, and uses the entire 4-byte value for the location counter and
prints the 4-byte value in the assembly listings. In this case the maximum valid
location counter value is 2 31 −1.
If the location counter exceeds its valid maximum value the assembler issues error
message
ASMA39S Location counter error
Controlling the Location Counter Value: You can control the setting of the
location counter in a particular control section by using the START or ORG
instruction, described in Chapter 3, “Program Structures and Addressing” and
Chapter 5, “Assembler Instruction Statements,” respectively. The counter affected
by either of these assembler instructions is the counter for the control section in
which they appear.
Location Counter Reference: You can refer to the current value of the location
counter at any place in a program by using an asterisk as a term in an operand.
The asterisk is a relocatable term, specified according to the following rules:
The asterisk can be specified only in the operands of:
– Machine instructions
– DC and DS instructions
– EQU, ORG, and USING instructions
Chapter 2. Coding and Structure 37