<html lang="en"> <head> <title>Labels - Using as</title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html"> <meta name="description" content="Using as"> <meta name="generator" content="makeinfo 4.7"> <link title="Top" rel="start" href="index.html#Top"> <link rel="up" href="Symbols.html#Symbols" title="Symbols"> <link rel="next" href="Setting-Symbols.html#Setting-Symbols" title="Setting Symbols"> <link href="http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/" rel="generator-home" title="Texinfo Homepage"> <!-- This file documents the GNU Assembler "as". Copyright (C) 1991, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''. man end--> <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css"> <style type="text/css"><!-- pre.display { font-family:inherit } pre.format { font-family:inherit } pre.smalldisplay { font-family:inherit; font-size:smaller } pre.smallformat { font-family:inherit; font-size:smaller } pre.smallexample { font-size:smaller } pre.smalllisp { font-size:smaller } span.sc { font-variant:small-caps } span.roman { font-family: serif; font-weight: normal; } --></style> </head> <body> <div class="node"> <p> <a name="Labels"></a>Next: <a rel="next" accesskey="n" href="Setting-Symbols.html#Setting-Symbols">Setting Symbols</a>, Up: <a rel="up" accesskey="u" href="Symbols.html#Symbols">Symbols</a> <hr><br> </div> <h3 class="section">5.1 Labels</h3> <p><a name="index-labels-210"></a>A <dfn>label</dfn> is written as a symbol immediately followed by a colon <span class="samp">:</span>. The symbol then represents the current value of the active location counter, and is, for example, a suitable instruction operand. You are warned if you use the same symbol to represent two different locations: the first definition overrides any other definitions. <p>On the HPPA, the usual form for a label need not be immediately followed by a colon, but instead must start in column zero. Only one label may be defined on a single line. To work around this, the HPPA version of <span class="command">as</span> also provides a special directive <code>.label</code> for defining labels more flexibly. </body></html>