Art of Assembly Language, 1st Edition

10.5. 10.5 Compile Time Expressions and Operators

As the previous section states, the HLA CTL supports constant expressions in the CTL assignment statement. Unlike the run-time language (where you have to translate algebraic notation into a sequence of machine instructions), the HLA CTL allows a full set of arithmetic operations using familiar expression syntax. This gives the HLA CTL considerable power, especially when combined with the built-in compile time functions the next section discusses.

Table 10-1 and Table 10-2 list operators that the HLA CTL supports in compile time expressions.

Table 10-1. Compile Time Operators

Operator(s)	Operand Types[144]	Description
- (unary)	numeric	Negates the specific numeric value (int, uns, real).