SDCC's assembler is derived from ASxxxx where manual describes the .define command here: http://shop-pdp.net/ashtml/asxs02.htm#define
Since it's a derivation it's possible not everything works the same way, but since the command line argument help talks about .define ("-b Display .define substitions in listing") I'd assume they are there.
However, when I do:
.define ay /-1/
I get the error:
g.s:1: Error: <o> .org in REL area or directive / mnemonic error
Other forms I've tried include:
.define ay ^/-1/
.define ay "-1"
.define kword /foo/
All of those result int he same error. If I try
.define
the error becomes:
g.s:1: Error: <q> missing or improper operators, terminators, or delimiters
I get that same error with .blarg though, so it's possible the keyword has been removed (why though?)
Am I doing something wrong, or is sdasz80 just broken?
Well crap, it seems it's a feature they removed for some reason. Searching through the github mirror of SDCC's sources (sdas sources here: https://github.com/svn2github/sdcc/tree/master/sdcc/sdas) SDCC's asxxxx.h (last edited 6 years ago) has this block:
/*
* The def structure is used by the .define assembler
* directive to define a substitution string for a
* single word. The def structure contains the
* string being defined, the string to substitute
* for the defined string, and a link to the next
* def structure. The defined string is a sequence
* of characters not containing any white space
* (i.e. NO SPACEs or TABs). The substitution string
* may contain SPACES and/or TABs.
*/
struct def
{
struct def *d_dp; /* link to next define */
char *d_id; /* defined string */
char *d_define; /* string to substitute for defined string */
int d_dflag; /* (1) .defined / (0) .undefined */
};
but as far as I can tell, that structure is not used anywhere.