inline_assembler.md

Inline assembler

• Differences from standalone assembler

Differences from standalone assembler

Below is a list of differences between the inline assembler and the standalone disassembler. If something is missing, feel free to contribute to the list!

• Pool constants
• Data sections
• Comments

Pool constants

There is no .word or other data directives in the inline assembler. Instead, there are three built-in instructions you can use:

dcd: Emits a literal 32-bit value

mov r0, [pc, #0]
bx lr
dcd 0x1234

ldconst: Loads a literal 32-bit value

ldconst r0, #0x1234
bx lr

This code is equivalent to the above example using dcd.

lda: Loads the address to a symbol

lda r0, data_ov00_02abcdef

Data sections

Directives such as .section, .data and .bss are not supported in the inline assembler. It's possible to change section with a #pragma, but there's no need to. Data should only be defined in standalone assembly or C/C++.

Comments

Inline assembly is handled by the compiler, so comments must be in C/C++ format. This means using // and /* */ instead of # or ;.

Semicolons ; instead mark the end of an instruction and are optional. You can use them to put multiple instructions on one line, but we avoid doing it so that we can preserve as much similarity to standalone assembly as possible.