as: Strings

1 
1 3.6.1.1 Strings
1 ...............
1 
1 A "string" is written between double-quotes.  It may contain
1 double-quotes or null characters.  The way to get special characters
1 into a string is to "escape" these characters: precede them with a
1 backslash '\' character.  For example '\\' represents one backslash: the
1 first '\' is an escape which tells 'as' to interpret the second
1 character literally as a backslash (which prevents 'as' from recognizing
1 the second '\' as an escape character).  The complete list of escapes
1 follows.
1 
1 '\b'
1      Mnemonic for backspace; for ASCII this is octal code 010.
1 
1 'backslash-f'
1      Mnemonic for FormFeed; for ASCII this is octal code 014.
1 
1 '\n'
1      Mnemonic for newline; for ASCII this is octal code 012.
1 
1 '\r'
1      Mnemonic for carriage-Return; for ASCII this is octal code 015.
1 
1 '\t'
1      Mnemonic for horizontal Tab; for ASCII this is octal code 011.
1 
1 '\ DIGIT DIGIT DIGIT'
1      An octal character code.  The numeric code is 3 octal digits.  For
1      compatibility with other Unix systems, 8 and 9 are accepted as
1      digits: for example, '\008' has the value 010, and '\009' the value
1      011.
1 
1 '\x HEX-DIGITS...'
1      A hex character code.  All trailing hex digits are combined.
1      Either upper or lower case 'x' works.
1 
1 '\\'
1      Represents one '\' character.
1 
1 '\"'
1      Represents one '"' character.  Needed in strings to represent this
1      character, because an unescaped '"' would end the string.
1 
1 '\ ANYTHING-ELSE'
1      Any other character when escaped by '\' gives a warning, but
1      assembles as if the '\' was not present.  The idea is that if you
1      used an escape sequence you clearly didn't want the literal
1      interpretation of the following character.  However 'as' has no
1      other interpretation, so 'as' knows it is giving you the wrong code
1      and warns you of the fact.
1 
1    Which characters are escapable, and what those escapes represent,
1 varies widely among assemblers.  The current set is what we think the
1 BSD 4.2 assembler recognizes, and is a subset of what most C compilers
1 recognize.  If you are in doubt, do not use an escape sequence.
1