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<h4 class="subsection">6.2.1 Arguments</h4>

<p><a name="index-expression-arguments-248"></a><a name="index-arguments-in-expressions-249"></a><a name="index-operands-in-expressions-250"></a><a name="index-arithmetic-operands-251"></a><dfn>Arguments</dfn> are symbols, numbers or subexpressions.  In other
contexts arguments are sometimes called &ldquo;arithmetic operands&rdquo;.  In
this manual, to avoid confusing them with the &ldquo;instruction operands&rdquo; of
the machine language, we use the term &ldquo;argument&rdquo; to refer to parts of
expressions only, reserving the word &ldquo;operand&rdquo; to refer only to machine
instruction operands.

   <p>Symbols are evaluated to yield {<var>section</var> <var>NNN</var>} where
<var>section</var> is one of text, data, bss, absolute,
or undefined.  <var>NNN</var> is a signed, 2's complement 32 bit
integer.

   <p>Numbers are usually integers.

   <p>A number can be a flonum or bignum.  In this case, you are warned
that only the low order 32 bits are used, and <samp><span class="command">as</span></samp> pretends
these 32 bits are an integer.  You may write integer-manipulating
instructions that act on exotic constants, compatible with other
assemblers.

   <p><a name="index-subexpressions-252"></a>Subexpressions are a left parenthesis &lsquo;<samp><span class="samp">(</span></samp>&rsquo; followed by an integer
expression, followed by a right parenthesis &lsquo;<samp><span class="samp">)</span></samp>&rsquo;; or a prefix
operator followed by an argument.

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