| Arguments

| Integer Expressions | Next

Arguments are symbols, numbers or subexpressions. In other contexts arguments are sometimes called "arithmetic operands". In this manual, to avoid confusing them with the "instruction operands" of the machine language, we use the term "argument" to refer to parts of expressions only, reserving the word "operand" to refer only to machine instruction operands.
Symbols are evaluated to yield {section NNN} where section is one of text, data, bss, absolute, or undefined. NNN is a signed, 2's complement 32 bit integer.
Numbers are usually integers. In principle, a number can be a flonum or bignum. In this case, you are warned that only the low order 32 bits are used, and `as` pretends these 32 bits are an integer. You may write integer-manipulating instructions that act on exotic constants, compatible with other assemblers.
Subexpressions are a left parenthesis `(` followed by an integer expression, followed by a right parenthesis `)`; or a prefix operator followed by an argument.