+
+@node MIPS floating-point
+@section Directives to override floating-point options
+
+@cindex Disable floating-point instructions
+@kindex @code{.set softfloat}
+@kindex @code{.set hardfloat}
+The directives @code{.set softfloat} and @code{.set hardfloat} provide
+finer control of disabling and enabling float-point instructions.
+These directives always override the default (that hard-float
+instructions are accepted) or the command-line options
+(@samp{-msoft-float} and @samp{-mhard-float}).
+
+@cindex Disable single-precision floating-point operations
+@kindex @code{.set singlefloat}
+@kindex @code{.set doublefloat}
+The directives @code{.set singlefloat} and @code{.set doublefloat}
+provide finer control of disabling and enabling double-precision
+float-point operations. These directives always override the default
+(that double-precision operations are accepted) or the command-line
+options (@samp{-msingle-float} and @samp{-mdouble-float}).
+
+Traditional @sc{mips} assemblers do not support these directives.
+
+@node MIPS Syntax
+@section Syntactical considerations for the MIPS assembler
+@menu
+* MIPS-Chars:: Special Characters
+@end menu
+
+@node MIPS-Chars
+@subsection Special Characters
+
+@cindex line comment character, MIPS
+@cindex MIPS line comment character
+The presence of a @samp{#} on a line indicates the start of a comment
+that extends to the end of the current line.
+
+If a @samp{#} appears as the first character of a line, the whole line
+is treated as a comment, but in this case the line can also be a
+logical line number directive (@pxref{Comments}) or a
+preprocessor control command (@pxref{Preprocessing}).
+
+@cindex line separator, MIPS
+@cindex statement separator, MIPS
+@cindex MIPS line separator
+The @samp{;} character can be used to separate statements on the same
+line.