ALIGN in Linker Scripts

Question

What does the ALIGN keyword do in linker scripts? I read many tutorials about linker scripts but I cant understand what really ALIGN do. Can any one explain it simply. Thanks!

Answer 1

. = ALIGN(8)

Corresponds to the following (working link script example using operators):

data = .;

. = ((data + 0x8 - 1) & ~(0x8 - 1)) - data;