I need help with the "stack" please

Could someone give me a link to a site that explains how the stack works, please that would be greatly appreciated.

"Last on, First off" type of memory management.

--Garfield

I hope this is right but this is how I understand it.
func1()
{
return 0;
}

func2()
{
func1();
return 0;
}

func3
{
func2()
return 0;
}

void main()
{
func3();
}

func3()'s return type and its parameters( I don't have any) are popped onto the stack first then it calls func2() its parameters and return type are on next. Then func1() is called its parameters and return type on popped onto the stack last. Then going back from func1() the are popped off from the stack.

I am kind of confused though, what happens when a function is called I mean in terms of memory and the stack? Please make this as simple as possible.

I mean in terms of the function branching off to the stack, how does this happen?

A function never "branches off" to the stack. The stack is a special area of memory, which is used for most types of data storage.

A stack is, conceptually, like a stack of books. You can put books on the stack (in programming, this is "pushing" onto the stack). You can take a book off of the stack ("popping"), and the book you get will be the last one you pushed.

The stack is nothing more than a special region of memory set aside for local variable storage. Each program under Windows is given its own stack.

Function branching USES the stack (to store the return address -- the address that the function should go back to when it finishes) but you can't branch TO the stack, that would crash the program.

Quote:

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Each program under Windows is given its own stack

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It is true. More exactly for Windows, each executing thread has its own stack (local variables) and all threads share heap (global variables). Sharing global variables by concurrent threads is very problematic, therefore each thread may allocate its "thread local storage" (TLS).

Quote:

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Function branching USES the stack (to store the return address -- the address that the function should go back to when it finishes)

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Not only return address. When you call a function, the caller (function that calls the function) pushes the arguments onto stack, just like the projectiles into pistol's cartridge. Depending on calling convention, after called function has finished, caller may decide to pop these arguments back, or leave this job to callee. This type of convention is named __cdecl and is used widely in C Runtime Library. All other conventions force callee (the called function) to pop these arguments back from stack. These include __stdcall (used by WinAPI), __fastcall and thiscall. Argumets are allways pushed in reverse order, that is the rightmost parameter is pushed first.

That's why you can use functions with elipsis (...), ex. printf (), only with __cdecl. Only caller knows how many arguments were really pushed and can pop them back eventually.

ok I got the pistol analogy, well sort of, could you like tell me what it is without getting really deep because I am just learning about the stack and all,.... Like for example, tell me what happens in memory when a program is compiled and the program is run.....please how the function returns and all that....please use the easiest analogy possible anybody please...I am desperate here.

anybody please............................................ ..............