title: Trouble understanding storage allocation in Kip Irvine's assembly language book
body: <p>I read the book <a href="http://kipirvine.com/asm/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Assembly Language for x86 by Kip Irvine</a>. On page 85 he wrote the following about why to use symbols:</p>
  <blockquote>
  <p>Using the <code>DUP</code> Operator: <code>Section 3.4.4</code> showed how to use the <code>DUP</code> operator to create storage for arrays and strings. The counter used by <code>DUP</code> should be a symbolic constant, to simplify program maintenance. In the next example, if COUNT has been deﬁned, it can be used in the following data deﬁnition:</p>
  <pre><code>array dword COUNT DUP(0)
  </code></pre>
  </blockquote>
  <p>I don't understand what this command is doing. Can someone explain to me what it means?</p>