as.info: Statements

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Statements

   A "statement" ends at a newline character (`\n') or line separator
character.  (The line separator is usually `;', unless this conflicts
with the comment character; *note Machine Dependencies::.)  The newline
or separator character is considered part of the preceding statement.
Newlines and separators within character constants are an exception:
they do not end statements.
   It is an error to end any statement with end-of-file:  the last
character of any input file should be a newline.
   An empty statement is allowed, and may include whitespace.  It is
ignored.
   A statement begins with zero or more labels, optionally followed by a
key symbol which determines what kind of statement it is.  The key
symbol determines the syntax of the rest of the statement.  If the
symbol begins with a dot `.' then the statement is an assembler
directive: typically valid for any computer.  If the symbol begins with
a letter the statement is an assembly language "instruction": it
assembles into a machine language instruction.  Different versions of
`as' for different computers recognize different instructions.  In
fact, the same symbol may represent a different instruction in a
different computer's assembly language.
   A label is a symbol immediately followed by a colon (`:').
Whitespace before a label or after a colon is permitted, but you may not
have whitespace between a label's symbol and its colon. *Note Labels::.
   For HPPA targets, labels need not be immediately followed by a
colon, but the definition of a label must begin in column zero.  This
also implies that only one label may be defined on each line.
     label:     .directive    followed by something
     another_label:           # This is an empty statement.
                instruction   operand_1, operand_2, ...