HLASM: V1R6 Language Ref

Quoted strings and character stringsA “quoted string” is any sequence of characters that begins and ends with a singlequotation mark (compare with conditional assembly character expressionsdescribed in “Character (SETC) expressions” on page 366).Two single quotation marks must be specified inside each quoted string. Thisincludes substituted single quotation marks.A “character string” is a sequence of characters, not delimited with quotes. So acharacter string is the contents of a quoted string.Quoted strings can contain double-byte data, if the DBCS assembler option isspecified. The double-byte data must be bracketed by the SO and SI delimiters.Only valid double-byte data is recognized between the SO and SI. The SI may bein any odd-numbered byte position after the SO. If the end of the operand isreached before SI is found, then error ASMA203E Unbalanced double-bytedelimiters is issued.Macro instruction operands can have values that include one or more quotedstrings. Each quoted string can be separated from the following quoted string byone or more characters, and each must contain an even number of single quotationmarks.Examples:’’’L’’SYMBOL’’QUOTE1’AND’QUOTE2’A’B’CValues in operandsAttribute reference notationYou can specify an attribute reference notation as a macro instruction operandvalue. The attribute reference notation must be preceded by a space or any otherspecial character except the ampersand and the single quotation mark. See “Dataattributes” on page 321 for details about data attributes, and the format of attributereferences.Examples:MAC1MAC1L’SYMBOL,10+L’AREA*L’FIELDI’PACKED-S’PACKEDParenthesesIn macro instruction operand values, there must be an equal number of left andright parentheses. They must be paired, that is, each left parenthesis needs afollowing right parenthesis at the same level of nesting. An unpaired (single) leftor right parenthesis can appear only in a quoted string.Examples:(PAIRED-PARENTHESES)()(A(B)C)D(E)(IN’(’STRING)SpacesOne or more spaces outside a quoted string indicates the end of the operands of amacro instruction. Thus spaces should only be used inside quoted strings.Example:Chapter 8. How to write macro instructions 307