7.79 .set symbol, expression

Set the value of symbol to expression. This changes symbol’s value and type to conform to expression. If symbol was flagged as external, it remains flagged (see Symbol Attributes).

You may .set a symbol many times in the same assembly provided that the values given to the symbol are constants. Values that are based on expressions involving other symbols are allowed, but some targets may restrict this to only being done once per assembly. This is because those targets do not set the addresses of symbols at assembly time, but rather delay the assignment until a final link is performed. This allows the linker a chance to change the code in the files, changing the location of, and the relative distance between, various different symbols.

If you .set a global symbol, the value stored in the object file is the last value stored into it.

On Z80 set is a real instruction, use ‘symbol defl expression’ instead.