BitMagic MASM (ml64) Syntax Highlighting
Editor support for Microsoft Macro Assembler 64-bit (ml64.exe) source in Visual Studio 2022.
It covers .asm and .inc files and does four things — colouring, comment commands, outlining
and brace matching — and nothing else: no build integration, IntelliSense or diagnostics.
Syntax colouring
Every token reuses a stock Visual Studio classification, so it already matches your theme and
your Fonts and Colors settings:
| Token |
Colour follows |
; … comments and COMMENT $ … $ blocks |
Comment |
Strings, with '' / "" escapes |
String |
Numbers — 10h, 0FFh, 1010b, 777o, 0x1F, 3.14, 1.5e3, 3F800000r |
Number |
| Instruction mnemonics (integer, x87, SSE/AVX/AVX-512, BMI, AES…) |
Keyword |
Directives — PROC, .code, .if, OPTION, INCLUDE… |
Preprocessor Keyword |
Size / type keywords — db..dq, BYTE..ZMMWORD, PTR |
User Types |
STRUCT / RECORD / UNION / TYPEDEF names |
User Types |
PROC / MACRO names, and call / invoke targets |
User Methods |
Data names (buf db 0) |
User Fields |
EQU / = constants |
User Constants |
Code labels and jmp / jCC targets |
Label Name |
Registers — rax..r15b, xmm/ymm/zmm, k0..k7, st(0), cr, segment regs |
MASM Register (added; defaults to the keyword colour) |
Keyword matching is case-insensitive. The dual instruction/operator words (and, or, xor,
not, shl, shr) are coloured as instructions only when they start a statement. Struct
member access — [rdx].Point.x — is handled: the . is an operator, the names are plain
identifiers, not directives.
;-based line comments via Comment Selection (Ctrl+K, Ctrl+C), Uncomment Selection
(Ctrl+K, Ctrl+U) and Toggle Line Comment (Ctrl+K, Ctrl+/).
Outlining
Collapsible regions for PROC/ENDP, MACRO/ENDM, STRUCT/ENDS, SEGMENT/ENDS,
.IF/.ENDIF, .WHILE/.ENDW, .REPEAT/.UNTIL, IF*/ENDIF, the repeat blocks, and
;region … ;endregion comment markers.
Brace matching
The () and [] pair next to the caret is highlighted. Braces inside comments and strings
are ignored; angle brackets are not matched (MASM uses < / > as comparison operators).
Customising
Nothing bespoke to configure. Adjust the standard Fonts and Colors items to recolour, or
edit the single added item MASM Register.
Licence
GPL-3.0-only.
