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(as.info)Balign

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`.balign[wl] ABS-EXPR, ABS-EXPR, ABS-EXPR'
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   Pad the location counter (in the current subsection) to a particular
storage boundary.  The first expression (which must be absolute) is the
alignment request in bytes.  For example `.balign 8' advances the
location counter until it is a multiple of 8.  If the location counter
is already a multiple of 8, no change is needed.

   The second expression (also absolute) gives the fill value to be
stored in the padding bytes.  It (and the comma) may be omitted.  If it
is omitted, the padding bytes are normally zero.  However, on some
systems, if the section is marked as containing code and the fill value
is omitted, the space is filled with no-op instructions.

   The third expression is also absolute, and is also optional.  If it
is present, it is the maximum number of bytes that should be skipped by
this alignment directive.  If doing the alignment would require
skipping more bytes than the specified maximum, then the alignment is
not done at all.  You can omit the fill value (the second argument)
entirely by simply using two commas after the required alignment; this
can be useful if you want the alignment to be filled with no-op
instructions when appropriate.

   The `.balignw' and `.balignl' directives are variants of the
`.balign' directive.  The `.balignw' directive treats the fill pattern
as a two byte word value.  The `.balignl' directives treats the fill
pattern as a four byte longword value.  For example, `.balignw
4,0x368d' will align to a multiple of 4.  If it skips two bytes, they
will be filled in with the value 0x368d (the exact placement of the
bytes depends upon the endianness of the processor).  If it skips 1 or
3 bytes, the fill value is undefined.