Thread: stack vs heap performance

  1. #1
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    stack vs heap performance

    Hi everyone,
    I'm developing an application that will measure connectivity and throughput over a wireless network between embedded systems, and i just had a question about the performance issues associated with dynamically allocating a chunk of memory on the heap rather than just declaring it and having it be on the stack.

    I already have quite a number of things on the stack, and there is an area of code im now developing that needs to remember a value for a very small amount of time, use it once, and then forget it. would it be wise to just declare a variable for it, say an int, or do a malloc(sizeof(int)) and use bitwise operations on it? thanks.

  2. #2
    Gawking at stupidity
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    Using the stack is definitely faster than allocating memory from the heap. The only overhead in using the stack is adjusting a CPU register. Heap management requires quite a bit more to happen behind the scenes (not the least of which is at least one system call). Things might be different for embedded systems, but that's my experience.
    If you understand what you're doing, you're not learning anything.

  3. #3
    Code Goddess Prelude's Avatar
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    >needs to remember a value for a very small amount of time, use it once, and then forget it
    That screams stack to me.
    My best code is written with the delete key.

  4. #4
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    many thanks friends

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