GCC汇编源码中的alignment

GCC支持的和align有关的directive共有三个，如下所示：

.align abs-expr, abs-expr, abs-expr

Pad the location counter (in the current subsection) to a particular storage boundary. The first expression (which must be absolute) is the alignment required, as described below.

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 way the required alignment is specified varies from system to system. For the arc, hppa, i386 using ELF, i860, iq2000, m68k, or32, s390, sparc, tic4x, tic80 and xtensa, the first expression is the alignment request in bytes. For example ‘.align 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.

For the tic54x, the first expression is the alignment request in words.

For other systems, including ppc, i386 using a.out format, arm and strongarm, it is the number of low-order zero bits the location counter must have after advancement. For example ‘.align 3’ advances the location counter until it a multiple of 8. If the location counter is already a multiple of 8, no change is needed.

This inconsistency is due to the different behaviors of the various native assemblers for these systems which GAS must emulate. GAS also provides .balign and .p2align directives, described later, which have a consistent behavior across all architectures (but are specific to GAS).

这个关键字可以有三个参数：

1. 第一个参数是指对齐方式。对于i386平台‘.align 8’意味着8字对齐。对于ARM平台，这个参数指示的是地址LSB侧为0的比特的数目，‘.align 3’意味着按照8 字节对齐。很明显，在不同平台上的不同含义会影响代码的可移植性，所以更常用的是关键字.balign和.p2align。

2.第二个参数指明因为对齐需要填充的内容。如果不指明这个参数（通过连续两个逗号），对data section缺省为0；对code section缺省为NO-OP指令。

3. 第三个参数指明最多可填充字节。如果需要填充更多的字节才能对齐，则填充对齐动作不会发生。

.balign[wl] abs-expr, abs-expr, abs-expr
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.

特点：

1. 第一个参数指需要对齐的字节数目。

2. .balignw声明第二个参数（需要填充的内容）为两字节word类型，.balignl声明第二个参数为四字节longword类型。如果需要填充的字节不是2或4的整数倍，填充的值未定义（是全部未定义还是仅仅余数部分未定义？估计是后者）

.p2align[wl] abs-expr, abs-expr, abs-expr
Pad the location counter (in the current subsection) to a particular storage boundary. The first expression (which must be absolute) is the number of low-order zero bits the location counter must have after advancement. For example ‘.p2align 3’ advances the location counter until it 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 .p2alignw and .p2alignl directives are variants of the .p2align directive. The .p2alignw directive treats the fill pattern as a two byte word value. The .p2alignl directives treats the fill pattern as a four byte longword value. For example, .p2alignw 2,0x368d 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

特点：

1. .p2align和.balign的区别仅仅在第一个参数。.balign第一个参数指需要对齐的字节数目。.p2align指地址LSB侧为0的比特的数目，‘.align 3’意味着按照8 字节对齐。