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What does 'stack overflow' mean?

Updated: 12/8/2022
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9y ago

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stack overflow is when you've used up more memory for the stack than your program was supposed to use. In embedded systems you might only have 256 bytes for the stack, and if each function takes up 32 bytes then you can only have function calls 8 deep - function 1 calls function 2 who calls function 3 who calls function 4 .... who calls function 8 who calls function 9, but function 9 overwrites memory outside the stack. This might overwrite memory, code, etc

Many programmers make this mistake by calling function A that then calls function B, that then calls function C, that then calls function A. It might work most of the time, but just once the wrong input will cause it to go in that circle forever until the computer recognizes that the stack is overblown.

By - Jatin

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DITSTEK

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3y ago
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9y ago

The "stack" in this case is an internal structure to store data in a first-in, last-out manner. "Overflow" means the program tried to store more data into this "stack" than there is space. If you are not into computer programming, and see this message as an end-user, there is not much you can do about it; it means either that there is an error in the programming, or that somehow the computer program had to repeat some operation, that required storing data to the stack, more often than was foreseen by the designers of the program (or of the programming environment, for example, the Java Virtual Machine).

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17y ago

Stack is a specific amount of memory assigned to a program to use. A stack overflow means that this stack is full and you can't insert anymore data into it

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