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<title>Using as: Labels</title>

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<a name="Labels"></a>
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Next: <a href="Setting-Symbols.html#Setting-Symbols" accesskey="n" rel="next">Setting Symbols</a>, Up: <a href="Symbols.html#Symbols" accesskey="u" rel="up">Symbols</a> &nbsp; [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="AS-Index.html#AS-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
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<a name="Labels-1"></a>
<h3 class="section">5.1 Labels</h3>

<a name="index-labels"></a>
<p>A <em>label</em> is written as a symbol immediately followed by a colon
&lsquo;<samp>:</samp>&rsquo;.  The symbol then represents the current value of the
active location counter, and is, for example, a suitable instruction
operand.  You are warned if you use the same symbol to represent two
different locations: the first definition overrides any other
definitions.
</p>
<p>On the HPPA, the usual form for a label need not be immediately followed by a
colon, but instead must start in column zero.  Only one label may be defined on
a single line.  To work around this, the HPPA version of <code>as</code> also
provides a special directive <code>.label</code> for defining labels more flexibly.
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