Microsoft KB Archive/74924

= A Structure Template Can Be Referenced in a MASM Program =

Article ID: 74924

Article Last Modified on 10/22/2003

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Macro Assembler 6.0 Standard Edition

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This article was previously published under Q74924



SUMMARY
With the Microsoft Macro Assembler (MASM), if a structure type is declared but no instance of the structure is ever defined, the assembler will still permit access to the structure.

This is expected behavior for the assembler. A reference to a structure field in this manner is equivalent to taking the offset of the field from the beginning of the structure.



MORE INFORMATION
The sample code below illustrates this situation. The example declares an &quot;animal&quot; structure type, but does not define an instance of the structure. A reference to this structure type is then made in the following line: mov ax, animal.dog As described above, the reference to animal.dog just generates the offset of the field, dog, from the beginning of the structure; therefore, this line is effectively the same as the statement &quot;mov ax, 2&quot;.

Sample Code
; Assemble options needed: none

.MODEL SMALL

animal  struc cat    dw  11 dog    dw  12 animal  ends

.CODE start: mov ax, @data mov ds, ax       mov ax, animal.dog END start

Additional query words: kbinf 5.10 5.10a 6.00 6.00a 6.00b

Keywords: KB74924

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