MOV v. COP and STring data types
In the SLC, the MOV instruction is only good for one word of data.
It doesn't matter if that word is the .ACC word of the 3-word element T4:0, or the whole of an N15:6, or the group of bits in B16:0.
An ST element is an 42-word element. So, if using a MOV on a ST, you could copy over just the string lenght (
MOV ST18:9.LEN) or any 2-character pair of the string (
MOV ST18:9.DATA(3)).
But if you want to keep the entire 42-word element grouped together, then you need the COP instruction.
The COP length isn't by word, but by element (which will vary in the number of words transferred, depending on the data type of the
destination. So a
COP ST18:7 ST18:9 will copy all 42 words (the length word, and 41 2-character pairs) from one string structure to another.
Now to your question
"But what if I wanted to copy from ST18:7 to ST:9?
<snip>
I have 8 characters in my string file. What syntax do I use to move all 8 characters?
"
I'm not clear on exactly what you are asking. You might be confusing the string data file (ST:18:7, ST18:8, ST18:9), with a string element's structure (ST18:7.DATA[3], ST18.7.DATA[4].
Each element in an ST contains a complete string (in your case, might contain the string "12:34:45".
The value of ST18:7.LEN is 8.
The value of STS8:7.DATA[0] is "12" (or 12594, if you could view those 16 bits as an integer.)
The value of STS8:7.DATA[1] is ":3"
The value of STS8:7.DATA[2] is "4:"
The value of STS8:7.DATA[3] is "56"
Now, if you are trying to just copy the "12:34" without copying the "56", you should use the ASCII functions like AEX to manipulate your string.
It's also possible that you have time information in ST18:1, ST18:2, through ST18:7 (and also ST18:9), and you want to transfer that data to some other location (ex: ST42:0 through 7). For this, you would use the COP instruction, (COP #ST18:1 #ST42:0 7). The length of 7 will move ST18:1 through ST18:7 to ST42:0 through ST42:6. To get the data in ST18:9 into ST42:7, you would need a seperate COP command, with a lenght of 1.
Does any of this clear things up for you?
When I first started replying, the picture wasn't there for some reason. So some of reply may not be quite right.