The original question did not ask why it allowed something stupid. It was: > Anyone see a problem with this? When did this kind of thing get > accepted? > ... > And every one of those "Branch" instructions would have been flagged > for an undefined label or some such.
I see a problem with not fixing it. It appears that it has been accepted for a long time (possibly forever). Also, the description of the message says exactly what it will do: | The name is equated to the current value of the | location counter (*). However, if no control section has | been started, the name is equated to zero. I will venture to say that it's reasonable for the assembler to allow it since it will probably do something acceptable. However, the point stands that it issues a warning because this might not be what the programmer intended. Putting an ordinary symbol (a label) on a DROP would (to me) indicate that the programmer intended it as a target for a branch, at which point the named base_register (or label or address) should be dropped. If this was the intention, it would be better to do as suggested. The assembler cannot read minds so it warns when it might not do what was intended. Eric Rossman -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Tony Thigpen Sent: Wednesday, October 2, 2024 8:47 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: Question on HLASM - B to a DROP statement!?! Please, Will everyone go back and read the OP's original post. The question was not 'how to fix', but was instead, 'why did the assembler allow something this stupid in the first place'. My post was just to point out that the VSE HLASM does the exact same thing. And, I have gotten multiple 'you can fix it by doing this' emails since my post. Tony Thigpen ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
