Terms in parentheses

Terms in parentheses are reduced to a single value; thus the terms in parentheses, in effect, become a single term.

You can use arithmetically combined terms, enclosed in parentheses, in combination with terms outside the parentheses, as follows:

14+BETA-(GAMMA-LAMBDA)

When the assembler encounters terms in parentheses in combination with other terms, it first reduces the combination of terms inside the parentheses to a single value, which can be absolute or relocatable, depending on the combination of terms. This value is then used in reducing the rest of the combination to another single value.

You can include terms in parentheses within a set of terms in parentheses:

A+B-(C+D-(E+F)+10)

The innermost set of terms in parentheses is evaluated first. Any number of levels of parentheses are allowed. A level of parentheses is a left parenthesis and its corresponding right parenthesis. An arithmetic combination of terms is evaluated as described in Expressions. Table 1 summarizes the various types of terms, and gives a reference to the page number where the term is discussed and the rules for using it are described.

Table 1. Summary of terms
Terms	Term can be absolute	Term can be relocatable	Value is assigned by assembler	Value is inherent in term	Topic reference
Symbols	X	X	X		Symbols
Literals	X	X	X		Literals, constants, and self-defining terms
Self-defining terms	X			X	Self-defining terms
Location counter reference		X	X		Location counter
Symbol length attribute	X		X		Symbol length attribute reference
Other data attributes¹	X		X		Other attribute references
Notes: Other valid data attributes are scale and integer.

For more information about absolute and relocatable expressions, see Absolute and relocatable expressions.