Assembler directives provide information to the assembler (SPIM supports a subset of the
MIPS assembler directives). The first character is always a dot.
.ascii str- store ASCII value of str in memory without a null terminator.
.asciiz str- store ASCII value or str in memory with a null terminator.
.byte b_1_, b_2_, ..., b_n_- store the n values in successive bytes of memory.
.half h_1_, h_2_, ..., h_n_- store the n 16-bit quantities in successive half words. Must be aligned on halfword boundaries.
.word w_1_, w_2_, ..., w_n_- store the n 32-bit quantities in successive words. Must be aligned on word boundaries.
.space n- allocates n bytes of memory. (SPIM: Must be in the data segment).
.text- flags the beginning of the text or executable section.
.data- flags the beginning of the data segment.
