FIX: A2042 May Be Caused By Using LOW and OFFSET In MASM 5.1 (40852)

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Macro Assembler (MASM) 5.1
Microsoft Macro Assembler (MASM) 5.1a

This article was previously published under Q40852

SYMPTOMS

When attempting to use the LOW operator in conjunction with the OFFSET operator, the following error message may be generated by MASM 5.1 and 5.1a

A2042: Constant expected

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in MASM version 5.1. This problem was corrected in MASM version 6.0.

MORE INFORMATION

The following code demonstrates the problem.

Sample Code

; Assemble options needed: none

        .model  small
        .code

TestLow PROC

var     DB      0
        DB      LOW OFFSET var

        RET
TestLow ENDP

        END     TestLow

Modification Type:	Major	Last Reviewed:	10/17/2003
Keywords:	kbfix KB40852