Are return address and data mixed/stored in the same stack, or in 2 different stacks, which is the case?
+2
A:
They are mixed. However, it depends on the actual programming language / compiler. I can image a compiler allocating space for local variable on the heap and keeping a pointer to the storage on the stack.
There is one stack per thread in each process. Hence, for example, a process with 20 threads has 20 independent stacks.
Ondrej Tucny
2010-10-12 15:45:07
A:
It depends on the compiler, but the x86 architecture is geared towards a single stack, due to the way push and pop instructions work with a single stack pointer. The compiler would have to do more work maintaining more than one stack.
Mike Houston
2010-10-12 15:46:24
+2
A:
As others have already pointed out, it's mostly a single, mixed stack. I'll just add one minor detail: reasonably recent processors also have a small cache of return addresses that's stored in the processor itself, and this stores only return addresses, not other data. It's mostly invisible outside of faster execution though...
Jerry Coffin
2010-10-12 15:49:19
A:
On more note: every thread in Win32 has its own stack. So, when you tell "windows program" - it depends on how many threads it has. (Of course threads are created/exited during the runtime).
valdo
2010-10-12 15:56:15