ID Number: Q72700
6.00 | 6.00
MS-DOS | OS/2
buglist6.00
Summary:
The Microsoft Macro Assembler (MASM) version 6.0 will incorrectly
parse a comment as if it were a conditional-assembly directive if the
following conditions are met:
1. There is a conditional-assembly directive (or word that is the same
as a conditional directive) inside a comment block that does not
directly follow the delimiter character and is the first thing on
the line.
2. The comment block itself is contained in a conditional-assembly
block, which will NOT be evaluated by the assembler.
When both of these conditions are true, the conditional-assembly
directive is given precedence over the comment block. The conditional
directive is treated as a keyword although it was not meant to be
treated as such.
More Information:
If the conditional-assembly directive is either IF, IFE, IFB, IFNB,
IFDEF, IFNDEF, IFIDN, or IFDIF and there is no associated ENDIF at the
beginning of another line, then the following errors will be
generated:
error A2088 : END directive required at end of file
fatal error : A1010 : unmatched block nesting : if-else
If the conditional-assembly directive is ELSE, then the following
error is generated:
error A2008 : syntax error : <the text following the ELSE>
If the conditional-assembly directive is ELSEIF, then the following
errors are generated:
error A2008 : syntax error
error A2081 : missing operand after unary operator
If the conditional-assembly directive is ENDIF, then the following
errors are generated
error A2008 : syntax error
error A2044 : invalid character in file
where the invalid character referred to is the closing delimiter.
The sample code below illustrates this problem. It meets the above
conditions, so it is parsed incorrectly and the following errors are
generated:
error A2088 : END directive required at end of file
fatal error : A1010 : unmatched block nesting : if-else
To work around the problem, make sure that the first word on the line
inside the comment block is not the same as a conditional directive.
For example, in the sample code, one solution is to change the line
"If should be ignored in a comment" to "An if should be ignored in a
comment."
Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in MASM version 6.0. We
are researching this problem and will post new information here as it
becomes available.
Sample Code
-----------
.model small
.stack
.code
.startup
IFDEF xyz ; xyz is not defined
COMMENT ^
If should be ignored in this comment.
^
ENDIF
.exit
END