.asciz - implementation or documentation wrong?

[Erik Christiansen]

On 05.07.11 12:38, Jan Beulich wrote:
> Documentation as well as the comment prior to stringer() say that the
> directive (like .ascii, but there it doesn't matter that much) expects
> comma separated double quoted strings. Yet a missing comma between
> two strings is taken as if there was one (whereas simply concatenating
> such strings - without any NUL character in between - would seem like
> the much better alternative).

Jan, in comparison, I'm having trouble seeing any documentation vs
behaviour difference, on a quick check with:

$ avr-as --version
GNU assembler (GNU Binutils) 2.20

Here, input of:

   .data  
   .asciz   "AAAA", "BBBB"
   .asciz   "CCCC"  "DDDD"
   .ascii   "EEEE", "FFFF"
   .ascii   "GGGG"  "HHHH"

gives:

   8                    .data
   9 0000 4141 4141     .asciz   "AAAA", "BBBB"
   9      0042 4242 
   9      4200 
  10 000a 4343 4343     .asciz   "CCCC"  "DDDD"
  10      0044 4444 
  10      4400 
  11 0014 4545 4545     .ascii   "EEEE", "FFFF"
  11      4646 4646 
  12 001c 4747 4747     .ascii   "GGGG"  "HHHH"
  12      4848 4848 

AFAICS, ascii and asciz are both indifferent to the comma, and
everything is concatenated as expected, with NULs where required.

If an inconsistency exists in newer binutils, and documentation does not
mandate it, then that is a regression, I submit.

If the post is a proposal to implement, and document, "Only one NUL, if
no commas", then the breaking of a few existing assembler programs may
be the price. The introduction of Awk-like string concatenation syntax
seems cute, but doesn't achieve anything that can't be done by eliding
the two quotes and space to begin with. At least then, the program is
more honestly explicit: z means each string is zero terminated. 

i.e.:
"`.asciz' is just like `.ascii', but each string is followed by a zero
byte."

So is there any gain to offset the pain of changing that?

Erik

-- 
In a time of drastic change it is the learners who survive; the
'learned' find themselves fully equipped to live in a world that no
longer exists.                                     -  Eric Hoffer