5.6.2.2 .palign algn[, fill[, max-skip]]

Pad the location counter (in the current subsection) to a particular storage boundary.

This directive is only allowed in a code section. If not in a code section, a warning is generated and the rest of the line is ignored.

algn is the address alignment required. The location counter is advanced until it is a multiple of the requested alignment. If the location counter is already a multiple of the requested alignment, no change is needed. In a dsPIC33C/E/F code section, an alignment of 2 is required to align to the next instruction word. In a dsPIC33A code section, an alignment of 4 is required. The requested alignment must be a power of 2.

fill is optional. If not specified, the last .pfillvalue specified is used to fill the skipped bytes. All three bytes of the program memory word are filled.

max-skip is optional. If specified, it is the maximum number of bytes (including the upper byte) that should be skipped by this directive. If doing the alignment would require skipping more bytes than the specified maximum, then the alignment is not done at all.