Re: Why doesn't this assemble for elf but does for pe?

["Stephen P. Smith" <ischis2 at cox dot net>]

Nick Clifton wrote:

> Hi Stephen,
>
>  
>
> > I have some code that looks like this.  The code assembles when
> > compiled with  i686-pc-pe-as but chokes when compiled with
> > i686-pc-elf-as.  The version of the assembler is the same:
> >    
>
> How does the assembler choke ?
>  

It complains about a missing ")"

> > --------------------- example ------------
> >  .equ numRawHandlers, NumEntries
> > table:
> >       <some code goes here>
> > common:
> > .equ size, ((common - table/ numRawHandlers)
> >    
>
> There are a couple of problem with this test case:
>
>  * The value of NumEntries is not defined.

Actually, the value is defined.  I didn't think you wanted to look at 
100 lines of code and when I
shortened it I forgot to give a value.

>  * There is a missing closing brace after 'table' on the last line.
>
> Anyway, if the problem is that the assembler is complaining about a
> missing closing parenthesis:
>
>  fred.s: Assembler messages:
>  fred.s:5: Error: missing ')' (
>
> then the reason is that the i386-pc-elf target defines the forward
> slash character ('/') as starting a comment, so the second .equ
> directive in the example above is interpreted as:
>
>  .equ size, ((common - table
>
> The answer is to disable pre-processing at the start of the file by
> using the #NO_APP directive, like this:
>
>  #NO_APP 
>  	.equ NumEntries, 5
>  	.equ numRawHandlers, NumEntries
>  table:
>         nop
>  common:
> 	.equ size, ((common - table) / numRawHandlers)
>
>  

Then how do I turn preprocessing back on?