[Nasm-devel] Re: nasm bug?

[Frank K. <fbk...@at...>]

Hi Ben!

I've been good. If I were any lazier, I wouldn't have ambition enough to 
breath, but enjoying it :)

>    bits_32
> 
> This should have returned syntax error or something, right?

Well, maybe. We saw another "bug-report" recently - same thing, but with 
"bits32". If you said "bits 33", Nasm would complain, but it thinks 
anything "one word" that it doesn't recognize as "one of its own" must 
be a label. Nasm doesn't require a colon after a label - can be set to 
warn about "label alone on a line without a colon" ("-w+orphan-labels" 
on the command-line, or "[warning +orphan-labels]" in the code), but the 
warning is off by default. The unix-folk, in particular, like it to 
"shut up and assemble".

I've been caught by it myself. Typed "sct" or something, when I meant 
"stc". The carry-flag was set anyway if I got to that part of the code 
(I was "just making sure"), so I didn't notice anything until someone 
asked me what "sct" was.

More recently, someone posted code with "------..." as a "separator". I 
use ";---------" often, so didn't notice no semicolon. Nasm took it as a 
label - no problem, but it was outside of any named section, so Nasm 
made up a default - 16-bit - section for it. The 32-bit linker didn't 
like it "1-bit"!!! I went absolutely apeshit over that one - modified 
Nasm to get rid of it, and everything! I didn't notice the problem until 
I was in the middle of posting a response to it - I think I posted it 
anyway, even tho I made an ass of myself (mov ax, ax :).

So I think it probably would have been smarter to do it differently - 
either require a colon, or at least have the warning "on" by default. It 
would be easy enough to change, but would probably require changes to a 
lot of existing code - or at least to makefiles - to get Nasm to "shut 
up", so it may not be a desireable change at this point. In the case of 
"bits...", which seems to be a particular problem ("use32" *doesn't* 
want a space, so it can be confusing), it would be possible to make 
"bits32", and maybe "bits_32", an alias for "bits 32" (and the same for 
16, I suppose). I guess I'll cc this to the list (Hi, List!) to see if 
anyone thinks this would be a good (or bad) idea.

Thanks for the feedback on that. I confess I haven't kept up with your 
recent progress with NBASM, so I can't return the favor. Hope it's going 
well. Starting to snow here, so I'd better go and get some wood in. 
Always good to hear from you!

Best,
Frank