Defining a temporary value

Use ASSIGN, SET, or VAR to define a symbol that might be redefined, such as for use with macro variables. Symbols defined with ASSIGN, SET, or VAR cannot be declared PUBLIC.

This example uses SET to redefine the symbol cons in a loop to generate a table of the first 8 powers of 3:

                  name    table
      cons        set     1

      ; Generate table of powers of 3.
      cr_tabl     macro   times
                  dc32    cons
      cons        set     cons * 3
                  if      times > 1
                  cr_tabl times - 1
                  endif
                  endm
    
                  section .text:CODE(2)
      table       cr_tabl 4
                  end

Defining a permanent local value

Use EQU or = to create a local symbol that denotes a number or offset. The symbol is only valid in the module in which it was defined, but can be made available to other modules with a PUBLIC directive (but not with a PUBWEAK directive).

Use EXTERN to import symbols from other modules.

Defining a permanent global value

Use DEFINE to define symbols that should be known to the module containing the directive. After the DEFINE directive, the symbol is known.

A symbol which was given a value with DEFINE can be made available to modules in other files with the PUBLIC directive.

Symbols defined with DEFINE cannot be redefined within the same file. Also, the expression assigned to the defined symbol must be constant.