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When I try to insert a semicolon in my code (in asm-mode) it seems to indent a certain number of tabs like this (usually 4 it seems):

D ;

And if I put another semicolon on the next line it will indent one tab so it looks like this and add another semicolon even though I only pressed it once:

D ; ;;

I am sure this is some helpful auto-complete technique, but I am just trying to do commands with a semicolon inside of it like 0;JEQ but since I am an Emacs noob I don't know where to look to deactivate this. I searched with different queries looking for this problem, but I am having trouble finding it which is weird since everything else I looked up was easily answerable either from the Emacs manual or some other site. Can anyone point me to which option I can change so no white space is inserted?

Edit: Here is what option I changed my comment button to:

asm comment char

Is this correct? Basically, I just deleted the comment char which was ";" to what it is now which is "/", but like I say the same problem happens where when I press the semicolon key I get a slash instead and my slash key still gives me a slash.

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    What major mode is this, asm-mode? Commented Dec 7, 2017 at 22:32
  • Good call -- that looks fairly assemblerish, and in asm-mode I see that C-h k ; reports that ; is bound to asm-comment. Presumably ; is not a comment in the language being used here. M-x customize-option RET asm-comment-char would deal to that. (That might well not be the only misconfiguration for this language, however.) Commented Dec 8, 2017 at 0:47
  • Yes it does say I am in asm-mode, and I tried M-x customize-option RET asm-comment-char, but I don't seem to know how to do it. Do I type it all one line? I tried M-x customize-option and then it asked me which variable to customize but I couldn't seem to get the rest of it to work. Also // and /**/ work for commenting which is strange since I would think that if ; is used for commenting then those wouldn't work? Commented Dec 8, 2017 at 5:28
  • @phils It seems I was successful in changing ";" comment char to "/" (it would only let me do one letter?). But now whenever I type the button on my keyboard that used to be semicolon it writes a "/". Like I say the double slash for comments already seem to be highlighted like I want, but I just want it so whenever I type a semicolon it doesn't indent a bunch. Did I do something wrong perhaps? Commented Dec 8, 2017 at 19:13
  • Based on my test, asm-comment-char tells the mode which key to bind to the asm-comment command, so typing / should now do the commenting action, and typing ; should insert a semicolon. You might need to revert your existing asm-mode buffers for that change to be picked up? Commented Dec 9, 2017 at 1:28

2 Answers 2

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In asm-mode, C-hk; reports that ; is bound to asm-comment.

The Commentary for asm-mode.el (M-x find-library RET asm-mode RET) says:

This minor mode is based on text mode. It defines a private abbrev table that can be used to save abbrevs for assembler mnemonics. It binds just five keys: TAB tab to next tab stop : outdent preceding label, tab to tab stop comment char place or move comment asm-comment-char specifies which character this is; you can use a different character in different Asm mode buffers. C-j, C-m newline and tab to tab stop Code is indented to the first tab stop level. This mode runs two hooks: 1) An asm-mode-set-comment-hook before the part of the initialization depending on asm-comment-char, and 2) an asm-mode-hook at the end of initialization.

So the variable asm-comment-char defines the comment character, and the mode uses this value to bind the associated key to the asm-comment command (i.e. "place or move comment").

You can configure this value globally via M-x customize-option RET asm-comment-char RET

Exactly how this feature works is entirely up to how the mode is written. In this case I can see that when the asm-mode function is called it generates a new local keymap for the buffer which inherits from asm-mode-map, and it defines the comment key in there.

Immediately before it does that it runs asm-mode-set-comment-hook, so one could also set a value for asm-comment-char (potentially a buffer-local value) using that hook, instead of customizing the option globally.

All of this commenting configuration happens when the asm-mode function runs, so changing the global value doesn't affect existing asm-mode buffers; but you could just run M-x asm-mode in a buffer to get it to pick on on a change to asm-comment-char, or you could revert the buffer(s), or re-visit them.

e.g.:

  • M-x revert-buffer
  • or kill the buffer and re-visit it
  • or use something like M-x ibuffer to mark and revert buffers en-masse

In ibuffer that would be *M asm-mode RET to mark, and V to revert.

Note that the way the keymap is generated means that each asm-mode buffer has its own independent comment key binding, so reverting a single buffer will not affect the pre-existing comment bindings in other asm-mode buffers, so reverting them all after a change to the global comment char option would make sense.

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A quick hack to disable this confusing functionality entirely is:

(advice-add #'asm-comment :override #'self-insert-command)

Then pressing your comment character will just insert it like you were expecting.

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