Addresses

You can code a symbol in the name field of a machine instruction statement to represent the address of that instruction. You can then refer to the symbol in the operands of other machine instruction statements. The object code requires that addresses be assembled in a numeric relative-offset or base-displacement format. This format lets you specify addresses that are relocatable or absolute. Program structures and addressing describes how you use symbolic addresses to refer to data in your assembler language program.

Defining Symbolic Addresses: Define relocatable addresses by either using a symbol as the label in the name field of an assembler language statement, or equating a symbol to a relocatable expression.

Define absolute addresses (or values) by equating a symbol to an absolute expression.

Referring to Addresses: You can refer to relocatable and absolute addresses in the operands of machine instruction statements. (Such address references are also called addresses in this manual.) The two ways of coding addresses are:

Implicitly—in a form that the assembler must first convert into an explicit relative-offset or base-displacement form before it can be assembled into object code.
Explicitly—in a form that can be directly assembled into object code.