Assembly Code Query

[.jareeN.]

Hi all,
	I am using gcc -S to generate this assembly code. The compiler
gives:

		andl    $-16, %esp

I understand that we are here basically anding 0xffff00ff with %esp. But
what I can't get is use of doing this. Could somebody tell me the
significance of doing this.



Detailed code:

        pushl   %ebp
        movl    $16, %edx
        movl    %esp, %ebp
        subl    $8, %esp
        andl    $-16, %esp
        movl    %edx, 4(%esp)


TIA
-- 
``My interest is in the future, because I am going to spend rest of my 
life there.''
				-- Charles F. Kettering 

	Date: Sat Feb 26 04:54:28 IST 2005
	GNU/Linux [2.6.11-rc5-ncd] System: up  9:05