COMPSCI 61C Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Call Stack, Uninitialized Variable, C Dynamic Memory Allocation

• School: Berkeley
• Department: Computer Science
• Course: COMPSCI 61C
• Professor: Gerald Friedland

Document Summary

To simplify discussion, we assume one program runs at a time with access to all of memory. Later, we"ll discuss virtual memory, which lets multiple programs all run at the same time each thinking they own all the memory. If declared outside a function, allocated in static storage. If declared inside function, allocated on the stack and freed when function returns main(cid:383)(cid:384) is treated like a function. For both types of memory, management is automatic! Every time a function is called, a new frame is allocated on the stack. Stack frame includes: return address (who called me?) arguments space for local variables. Use contiguous blocks of memory; stack pointer indicates start of stack frame. When function ends, stack pointer moves up; frees memory for future stack frames. Check for it) additional control information (including size) stored in the heap for each allocated block.