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ca65 Users Guide

Ullrich von Bassewitz, uz@cc65.org

19.07.2000, 29.11.2000, 02.10.2001

ca65 is a powerful macro assembler for the 6502, 65C02 and 65816 CPUs. It is used as a companion assembler for the cc65 crosscompiler, but it may also be used as a standalone product.

1. Overview

1.1 Design criteria

2. Usage

2.1 Command line option overview
2.2 Command line options in detail

3. Input format

3.1 Assembler syntax
3.2 65816 mode
3.3 6502X mode
3.4 sweet16 mode
3.5 Number format
3.6 Conditional assembly

4. Expressions

4.1 Expression evaluation
4.2 Size of an expression result
4.3 Boolean expressions
4.4 Constant expressions
4.5 Available operators

5. Symbols and labels

5.1 Numeric constants
5.2 Standard labels
5.3 Local labels and symbols
5.4 Cheap local labels
5.5 Unnamed labels
5.6 Using macros to define labels and constants
5.7 Symbols and .DEBUGINFO

6. Scopes

6.1 Global scope
6.2 Cheap locals
6.3 Generic nested scopes
6.4 Nested procedures
6.5 Structs, unions and enums
6.6 Explicit scope specification
6.7 Scope search order

7. Address sizes and memory models

7.1 Address sizes
7.2 Address sizes of segments
7.3 Address sizes of symbols
7.4 Memory models

8. Pseudo variables

8.1 *
8.2 .CPU
8.3 .PARAMCOUNT
8.4 .TIME
8.5 .VERSION

9. Pseudo functions

9.1 .BANKBYTE
9.2 .BLANK
9.3 .CONCAT
9.4 .CONST
9.5 .HIBYTE
9.6 .HIWORD
9.7 .IDENT
9.8 .LEFT
9.9 .LOBYTE
9.10 .LOWORD
9.11 .MATCH
9.12 .MID
9.13 .REF, .REFERENCED
9.14 .RIGHT
9.15 .SIZEOF
9.16 .STRAT
9.17 .SPRINTF
9.18 .STRING
9.19 .STRLEN
9.20 .TCOUNT
9.21 .XMATCH

10. Control commands

10.1 .A16
10.2 .A8
10.3 .ADDR
10.4 .ALIGN
10.5 .ASCIIZ
10.6 .ASSERT
10.7 .AUTOIMPORT
10.8 .BSS
10.9 .BYT, .BYTE
10.10 .CASE
10.11 .CHARMAP
10.12 .CODE
10.13 .CONDES
10.14 .CONSTRUCTOR
10.15 .DATA
10.16 .DBYT
10.17 .DEBUGINFO
10.18 .DEFINE
10.19 .DEF, .DEFINED
10.20 .DESTRUCTOR
10.21 .DWORD
10.22 .ELSE
10.23 .ELSEIF
10.24 .END
10.25 .ENDENUM
10.26 .ENDIF
10.27 .ENDMAC, .ENDMACRO
10.28 .ENDPROC
10.29 .ENDREP, .ENDREPEAT
10.30 .ENDSCOPE
10.31 .ENDSTRUCT
10.32 .ENUM
10.33 .ERROR
10.34 .EXITMAC, .EXITMACRO
10.35 .EXPORT
10.36 .EXPORTZP
10.37 .FARADDR
10.38 .FEATURE
10.39 .FILEOPT, .FOPT
10.40 .FORCEIMPORT
10.41 .GLOBAL
10.42 .GLOBALZP
10.43 .I16
10.44 .I8
10.45 .IF
10.46 .IFBLANK
10.47 .IFCONST
10.48 .IFDEF
10.49 .IFNBLANK
10.50 .IFNDEF
10.51 .IFNREF
10.52 .IFP02
10.53 .IFP816
10.54 .IFPC02
10.55 .IFPSC02
10.56 .IFREF
10.57 .IMPORT
10.58 .IMPORTZP
10.59 .INCBIN
10.60 .INCLUDE
10.61 .INTERRUPTOR
10.62 .LINECONT
10.63 .LIST
10.64 .LISTBYTES
10.65 .LOCAL
10.66 .LOCALCHAR
10.67 .MACPACK
10.68 .MAC, .MACRO
10.69 .ORG
10.70 .OUT
10.71 .P02
10.72 .P816
10.73 .PAGELEN, .PAGELENGTH
10.74 .PC02
10.75 .POPSEG
10.76 .PROC
10.77 .PSC02
10.78 .PUSHSEG
10.79 .RELOC
10.80 .REPEAT
10.81 .RES
10.82 .RODATA
10.83 .SCOPE
10.84 .SEGMENT
10.85 .SETCPU
10.86 .SMART
10.87 .STRUCT
10.88 .SUNPLUS
10.89 .TAG
10.90 .WARNING
10.91 .WORD
10.92 .ZEROPAGE

11. Macros

11.1 Introduction
11.2 Macros without parameters
11.3 Parametrized macros
11.4 Detecting parameter types
11.5 Recursive macros
11.6 Local symbols inside macros
11.7 C style macros
11.8 Characters in macros

12. Macro packages

12.1 .MACPACK generic
12.2 .MACPACK longbranch
12.3 .MACPACK cbm
12.4 .MACPACK cpu

13. Predefined constants

14. Structs and unions

14.1 Overview
14.2 Declaration
14.3 The .TAG keyword
14.4 Limitations

15. Module constructors/destructors

15.1 Overview
15.2 Calling order
15.3 Pitfalls

16. Porting sources from other assemblers

16.1 TASS

17. Bugs/Feedback

18. Copyright

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