7.66 .nops size[, control]

This directive emits no-op instructions. It is specific to the Intel 80386 and AMD x86-64 targets. It takes a size argument and generates size bytes of no-op instructions. size must be absolute and positive. These bytes do not affect the generation of DWARF debug line information.

The optional control argument specifies a size limit for a single no-op instruction. If not provided then a value of 0 is assumed. The valid values of control are between 0 and 4 in 16-bit mode, between 0 and 7 when tuning for older processors in 32-bit mode, between 0 and 11 in 64-bit mode or when tuning for newer processors in 32-bit mode. When 0 is used, the no-op instruction size limit is set to the maximum supported size.