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ca65 Users Guide

Ullrich von Bassewitz, uz@cc65.org

2000-07-19, 2000-11-29, 2001-10-02, 2005-09-08

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. Search paths

4. Input format

4.1 Assembler syntax
4.2 65816 mode
4.3 6502X mode
4.4 sweet16 mode
4.5 Number format
4.6 Conditional assembly

5. Expressions

5.1 Expression evaluation
5.2 Size of an expression result
5.3 Boolean expressions
5.4 Constant expressions
5.5 Available operators

6. Symbols and labels

6.1 Numeric constants
6.2 Standard labels
6.3 Local labels and symbols
6.4 Cheap local labels
6.5 Unnamed labels
6.6 Using macros to define labels and constants
6.7 Symbols and .DEBUGINFO

7. Scopes

7.1 Global scope
7.2 Cheap locals
7.3 Generic nested scopes
7.4 Nested procedures
7.5 Structs, unions and enums
7.6 Explicit scope specification
7.7 Scope search order

8. Address sizes and memory models

8.1 Address sizes
8.2 Address sizes of segments
8.3 Address sizes of symbols
8.4 Memory models

9. Pseudo variables

9.1 *
9.2 .CPU
9.3 .PARAMCOUNT
9.4 .TIME
9.5 .VERSION

10. Pseudo functions

10.1 .BANKBYTE
10.2 .BLANK
10.3 .CONCAT
10.4 .CONST
10.5 .HIBYTE
10.6 .HIWORD
10.7 .IDENT
10.8 .LEFT
10.9 .LOBYTE
10.10 .LOWORD
10.11 .MATCH
10.12 .MID
10.13 .REF, .REFERENCED
10.14 .RIGHT
10.15 .SIZEOF
10.16 .STRAT
10.17 .SPRINTF
10.18 .STRING
10.19 .STRLEN
10.20 .TCOUNT
10.21 .XMATCH

11. Control commands

11.1 .A16
11.2 .A8
11.3 .ADDR
11.4 .ALIGN
11.5 .ASCIIZ
11.6 .ASSERT
11.7 .AUTOIMPORT
11.8 .BANKBYTES
11.9 .BSS
11.10 .BYT, .BYTE
11.11 .CASE
11.12 .CHARMAP
11.13 .CODE
11.14 .CONDES
11.15 .CONSTRUCTOR
11.16 .DATA
11.17 .DBYT
11.18 .DEBUGINFO
11.19 .DEFINE
11.20 .DEF, .DEFINED
11.21 .DESTRUCTOR
11.22 .DWORD
11.23 .ELSE
11.24 .ELSEIF
11.25 .END
11.26 .ENDENUM
11.27 .ENDIF
11.28 .ENDMAC, .ENDMACRO
11.29 .ENDPROC
11.30 .ENDREP, .ENDREPEAT
11.31 .ENDSCOPE
11.32 .ENDSTRUCT
11.33 .ENUM
11.34 .ERROR
11.35 .EXITMAC, .EXITMACRO
11.36 .EXPORT
11.37 .EXPORTZP
11.38 .FARADDR
11.39 .FEATURE
11.40 .FILEOPT, .FOPT
11.41 .FORCEIMPORT
11.42 .GLOBAL
11.43 .GLOBALZP
11.44 .HIBYTES
11.45 .I16
11.46 .I8
11.47 .IF
11.48 .IFBLANK
11.49 .IFCONST
11.50 .IFDEF
11.51 .IFNBLANK
11.52 .IFNDEF
11.53 .IFNREF
11.54 .IFP02
11.55 .IFP816
11.56 .IFPC02
11.57 .IFPSC02
11.58 .IFREF
11.59 .IMPORT
11.60 .IMPORTZP
11.61 .INCBIN
11.62 .INCLUDE
11.63 .INTERRUPTOR
11.64 .LINECONT
11.65 .LIST
11.66 .LISTBYTES
11.67 .LOBYTES
11.68 .LOCAL
11.69 .LOCALCHAR
11.70 .MACPACK
11.71 .MAC, .MACRO
11.72 .ORG
11.73 .OUT
11.74 .P02
11.75 .P816
11.76 .PAGELEN, .PAGELENGTH
11.77 .PC02
11.78 .POPSEG
11.79 .PROC
11.80 .PSC02
11.81 .PUSHSEG
11.82 .RELOC
11.83 .REPEAT
11.84 .RES
11.85 .RODATA
11.86 .SCOPE
11.87 .SEGMENT
11.88 .SETCPU
11.89 .SMART
11.90 .STRUCT
11.91 .SUNPLUS
11.92 .TAG
11.93 .WARNING
11.94 .WORD
11.95 .ZEROPAGE

12. Macros

12.1 Introduction
12.2 Macros without parameters
12.3 Parametrized macros
12.4 Detecting parameter types
12.5 Recursive macros
12.6 Local symbols inside macros
12.7 C style macros
12.8 Characters in macros

13. Macro packages

13.1 .MACPACK generic
13.2 .MACPACK longbranch
13.3 .MACPACK cbm
13.4 .MACPACK cpu

14. Predefined constants

15. Structs and unions

15.1 Structs and unions Overview
15.2 Declaration
15.3 The .TAG keyword
15.4 Limitations

16. Module constructors/destructors

16.1 Module constructors/destructors Overview
16.2 Calling order
16.3 Pitfalls

17. Porting sources from other assemblers

17.1 TASS

18. Bugs/Feedback

19. Copyright

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