comp.lang.c
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Re: Backtrace function

Subject: Re: Backtrace function
From: "Dik T. Winter"
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:24:59 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c

In article <fsju8b$i9k$1@xxxxxxxx> jacob@xxxxxxxxxx writes:
 > Flash Gordon wrote:
...
 > > If there is anything to tell you other than the function prologue. Of 
 > > course the return address might not have been saved to RAM either due to 
 > > function inlining (as an optimisation) or because it did not need to for 
 > > some other reason.
 > 
 > The function address is always saved, or, sometimes held in a
 > designated register. In both cases it is at a fixed point.

The return address is *not* always saved in RAM.  Think about processors
with register windows where the last n (for some small value of n)
register sets are not yet saved in RAM but still reside in register
windows.  Of course, on such a system there might be an instruction that
flushes the register windows (on the SPARC there is one: TRAP 3).
-- 
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj  amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn  amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/

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