FIX: ALIGN or EVEN Cannot follow DUP in Same Module (75280)

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Macro Assembler (MASM) 6.0

This article was previously published under Q75280

SYMPTOMS

If an ALIGN or EVEN directive is used in a module after data has been defined with the DUP operator in the Microsoft Macro Assembler (MASM) version 6.0, the alignment value will be adjusted by one for each DUP that precedes it. The example code below illustrates this.

RESOLUTION

Currently, the only workarounds in this case are to either avoid using ALIGN (or EVEN) and manually pad the segment by the required amount or to not use the DUP operator in the same segment that will use the ALIGN (or EVEN) directive.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in MASM version 6.0. This problem was corrected in MASM version 6.0a.

MORE INFORMATION

The following sample code can be used to demonstrate the problem.

Sample Code

; Assemble options needed: /Fl /Sa

example segment para    public 'data'
        db      2 dup (0)
        db      3 dup (0)
        align 8
        dw      0             ; starts at offset 6 instead of 8
example ends
END

Modification Type:	Major	Last Reviewed:	10/22/2003
Keywords:	kbfix KB75280