TAL Reference Manual

Pointers

TAL Reference Manual—526371-001

9-2

Simple Pointer Declaration

A simple pointer declaration associates an identifier with a memory location that

contains the user-initialized address of a simple variable or array.

type

is any data type except UNSIGNED. The data type determines how much data the

simple pointer can access at one time—byte, word, doubleword, or quadrupleword.

. (period)

is the standard indirection symbol and denotes a standard (16-bit) pointer.

.EXT

is the extended indirection symbol and denotes an extended (32-bit) pointer.

identifier

is the identifier of the simple pointer.

initialization

is an expression that represents a memory address, as described in Simple

Pointer Initializations on page 9-3.

Usage Considerations

Extended pointer declarations should precede other global or local declarations. The

compiler emits more efficient machine code if it can allocate extended pointers

between G[0] and G[63] or between L[0] and L[63].

The data type determines the size of data a simple pointer can access at a time, as

listed in Table 9-1

on page 9-3.

VST0901.vsd

type

.EXT

identifier ;

:= initialization