FIX: Parentheses Necessary for Operator Precedence (39443)

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Macro Assembler (MASM) 5.1

This article was previously published under Q39443

SYMPTOMS

Using Microsoft Macro Assembler (MASM) version 5.1, You may be able to correct "Illegal size for operand" errors by careful use of parentheses.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in MASM version 5.1. This problem was corrected in MASM version 5.1a.

MORE INFORMATION

The following code demonstrates warnings, errors, and their solution:

dosseg
.model small,c
.data

.code
myproc PROC buffer:FAR PTR BYTE

           mov     bx, WORD PTR buffer[0]
           mov     ds, WORD PTR buffer[2]

; MASM gives an operand-size error. This is a precedence problem that
; you can correct with parentheses:

           mov     bx, WORD PTR (buffer[0])
           mov     ds, WORD PTR (buffer[2])

myproc ENDP

end

Modification Type:	Major	Last Reviewed:	10/29/2003
Keywords:	kbfix KB39443