22. Data segment declarations

• Terminology:

  • label: is a memory address of a variable

  • directive is a type of data

  • constant is the initial value

• For example,

  
       .data
       # A zero-terminated string
       prompt: .asciiz "Enter a number: "
  
       # A variable to store user response
       num: .word 0
  
  

• Note: there isn't much difference between constants and variables. Both are values in memory that program can read/write.