test$ cat test.asm

start:
        incbin "lDOSLOAD.BIN"

        incbin _DEFINE

%if ($ - start) < 4096
 times 4096 - ($ - start) db 38
%endif
test$ dd if=/dev/zero of=lDOSLOAD.BIN bs=1 count=123424
123424+0 records in
123424+0 records out
123424 bytes (123 kB, 121 KiB) copied, 0.136565 s, 904 kB/s
test$ touch empty.dat
test$ nasm test.asm -D_DEFINE="'empty.dat'"
test$ nasm test.asm -D_DEFINE=empty.dat
test.asm:5: error: `%pathsearch' expects a file name
test.asm:5: error: `%depend' expects a file name
test.asm:5: error: symbol `..@3.dep' not defined before use
test$ nasm test.asm -D_DEFINE
test.asm:5: warning: improperly calling multi-line macro `incbin' with 0 parameters [-w+pp-macro-params-legacy]
test.asm:5: error: `%pathsearch' expects a file name
test.asm:5: error: `%depend' expects a file name
test.asm:5: error: symbol `..@3.dep' not defined before use
test$ nasm test.asm -D_DEFINE="''"
test.asm:5: error: `incbin': unable to get length of file `'
test$ nasm test.asm -D_DEFINE="''" -I ./
panic: test.asm:8: assertion instruction->times > 0 failed at asm/nasm.c:1586
test$


test$ ~/proj/nasmtest/rc/nasm -v
NASM version 3.00rc9 compiled on Sep 20 2025
test$ ~/proj/nasmtest/rc/nasm test.asm -D_DEFINE="'empty.dat'"
test$ ~/proj/nasmtest/rc/nasm test.asm -D_DEFINE=empty.dat
test.asm:5: error: `%pathsearch' expects a file name
test.asm:5: error: `%depend' expects a file name
test.asm:5: error: expression syntax error
test$ ~/proj/nasmtest/rc/nasm test.asm -D_DEFINE
test.asm:5: warning: improperly calling multi-line macro `incbin' with 0 parameters [-w+pp-macro-params-legacy]
test.asm:5: error: `%pathsearch' expects a file name
test.asm:5: error: `%depend' expects a file name
test.asm:5: error: expression syntax error
test$ ~/proj/nasmtest/rc/nasm test.asm -D_DEFINE="''"
test.asm:5: error: `incbin': unable to get length of file `'
test$ ~/proj/nasmtest/rc/nasm test.asm -D_DEFINE="''" -I ./
test.asm:5: error: `incbin': unexpected EOF while reading file `./'
test.asm:5: error: `incbin': error while reading file `./'
test$