Thread: Memory allocated to variables of a function on different function calls

Originally Posted by tabstop

"Generated machine code" might be a little bit of a stretch, but presumably if you knew all the opcodes for the chip, and the binary format, etc, then you could "read" an exe file. I don't know anyone who's ever even tried this, and wouldn't expect anyone to actually do so.

But you can get some idea by having your compiler stop at generating the assembly code, which has got pretty much all the gory details while still at least pretending to be readable. How you do that depends on your compiler. (You can find some information about assembly language on the net; the last time I looked I didn't find anything extremely up-to-date (because people just aren't writing assembly that much any more), but for programs such as the one you've got it will be good enough.)

Well, to be honest, I've found myself looking at the assembly of generated C++ code from time to time to find out what the heck is happening.
But to disassemble an entire executable file is probably not very many people who do.

Originally Posted by tabstop

"Generated machine code" might be a little bit of a stretch, but presumably if you knew all the opcodes for the chip, and the binary format, etc, then you could "read" an exe file......

That seems way too complicated for the moment, I think I'll keep this experimentation reserved for future
anyway thanx for the tip

Originally Posted by capt.jack

I strongly disagree with your "No Trespassing" theory where one should force himself into categorizing down any statement on programming behaviour into either some theoretical "one-should-not-care-to-test" statement or a statement (according to you) having some worthy "testable behavior"; because if I would'nt have tested that statement and initiated a discussion here then I might not have(if not later) learnt the "inferred conclusion" in the post above.
OR can you please go ahead and kindly define the parameters you use to judge a statement's worth to be tested or not

It's not about worth. Is a no trespassing sign worth testing? It simply doesn't make sense. You made assumptions about the statement such as thinking that variables could not occupy the same space in memory they did last time. Whether they do or not has no bearing on the assumptions the author is asking you to make or not make.

That wasn't a theory I mentioned, it was a metaphor for the particular statement in question. By no means do I intend the same logic to apply to things willy-nilly. Really the original statement being discussed comes down to the author saying "assume nothing". Now you can make assumptions and then test those assumptions, but as I think you've now come to realise, that doesn't and in fact cant invalidate what the original statement says. Just assume no knowledge of the location of your variables is the intent the author is trying to get across here.

Revered Sir,
proving that might be an utter foolishness and worthless for you but for a humble beginner like me, the learning from the proof is worth its salt

You simply misunderstood. It's not about not being worthy of proving, it makes no sense to try and prove, just like the no trespassing sign example, because it is not a statement about the behaviour that your compiled program will actually give.

Experimentation is good. But there are simply some things that you cannot get a proper understanding from through experimentation alone. Memory management like this is one of them, because it will be different from platform to platform and various circumstances.
If you want to know more, then you shouldn't experiment, but instead study operating system principles and see how they would deal with it.