3 Assembler Command-Line Options

An assembler is included with the MPLAB XC32 C Compiler to assemble source files for all supported devices. The assembler is automatically run by the compiler driver, xc32-gcc, for any assembly source files in your project.

Many of the commonly used assembler options are accessible as controls in the MPLAB X IDE Project Properties dialog. However, for more advanced options, you may have to specify the option in the “Alternate Settings” field of this dialog. The compiler driver's -Wa option can pass any option to the assembler without you having to run the assembler directly. After you build a project in MPLAB X IDE, the output window shows the options passed to the assembler.

Although the term “assembler” is almost universally used to describe the tool that converts human-readable mnemonics into machine code, both “assembler” and “assembly” are used to describe the source code which such a tool reads. The latter is more common and is used in this manual to describe the language. Thus you will see the terms assembly language (or just assembly), assembly listing, assembler options, assembler directive, assembler optimizer, and other assembly terms.