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### 7.71 `.line` line-number

Change the logical line number. line-number must be an absolute expression. The next line has that logical line number. Therefore any other statements on the current line (after a statement separator character) are reported as on logical line number line-number − 1. One day `as` will no longer support this directive: it is recognized only for compatibility with existing assembler programs.

Even though this is a directive associated with the `a.out` or `b.out` object-code formats, `as` still recognizes it when producing COFF output, and treats ‘`.line`’ as though it were the COFF ‘`.ln`’ if it is found outside a `.def`/`.endef` pair.

Inside a `.def`, ‘`.line`’ is, instead, one of the directives used by compilers to generate auxiliary symbol information for debugging.