FIX: ALIGN Immediately After INCLUDE Generates L1101 (80119)

SYMPTOMS

The Microsoft Macro Assembler (MASM) version 6.0 generates an invalid object module when given code that contains an INCLUDE directive followed immediately by an ALIGN directive. The contents of the included file are not important; it can even be an empty file. The linker may not issue a warning. If the linker does detect the error, it generates the following:

error L1101: invalid object module

RESOLUTION

To work around this problem, place the INCLUDE directive at the beginning of the file so that the ALIGN directive does not immediately follow the INCLUDE directive.

STATUS

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

MORE INFORMATION

If you assemble the following sample code with /Zi, the linker will detect the invalid object module and issue the error message. Without /Zi, no warning is given and the program terminates normally, but the object module is still invalid.

Sample Code

; Assemble options needed: none
; The file FILE.INC needs to be created, but may be left empty.

_text   SEGMENT para public 'code'
        ASSUME  CS:_text

start:  mov cx, 0100h
INCLUDE FILE.INC
        ALIGN 4
loopx:  mov ax, 4C00h
        int 21h

_text   ENDS

END     start