how to show listing in physical location order vs logical

Lynne · New User Joined: 15 Jan 2015 Posts: 93 Location: USA

when you have an assembler program written in logical order with multiple LOCTRs, is there any way to show the listing in physical order? not logical order?

I have gone thru the IBM assembler manual with the assembly options, but cannot find an option that seems to do this. I thought maybe I'm not looking for the right term.

does anyone know of a way to do this?

steve-myers · Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2020 5:49 am

I think I understand what Lynne has proposed and I have to admit I have never used the LOCTR Assembler instruction, or its equivalent in the IBMAP second generation assembler.

I always thought LOCTR has possibilities in terms of the structures System/360 type hardware imposes on programs, but I had worked around these structures long before LOCTR was available to me: my employer through most of the 1970s chose not to pay for Assembler H though I did have access to a pirated copy. After some thought my memory tells me I did not see any advantage in chopping up programs with LOCTR for the same reason Lynne wants to repair the listing, so I never used it, not even to try it!

Toward the end of the 1970s, or even into the early 1980s, I discovered three surprises.

Using BUFSIZE(MAX) and allocating the SYSUTx (especially SYSUT1) data sets as VIO data sets, the IFOX assembler (OS/VS System Assembler) was nearly as fast as AsmH!
Most of the time the IFOX diagnostic messages were more usable the the same diagnostics from AsmH.
IFOX had some annoying bugs that shut down some assemblies that AsmH just laughed off. These bugs forced me into using AsmH more than I wanted just to correct the source problems the crashed IFOX. It was during this period I developed an ASMVS and a similar ASMH command processor to run IFOX and AsmH in TSO. Unfortunately I lost their source in 1982. Through the 1990s I made some feeble attempts to recreate ASMH and an HLASM command processor after the High Level Assembler became available, but never finished them. This continued into the 2000s. Lack of time. Finally, late into the 2010s I completed a usable HLASM command processor (CBT "file" 966). Nice to be "retired."

Lynne · New User Joined: 15 Jan 2015 Posts: 93 Location: USA

yes, I agree. IBM does not put enough into a lot of their diagnostic messages.

but then, neither do a lot of languages. especially the more modern languages.

It is frustrating, because you know they have all the infomration when the error occurs. imo, just lazy programming.

but at least, IBM does try to keep up their manuals, including their message manuals.