Imperfect C++ Practical Solutions for Real-Life Programming

Chapter 32. Memory

A Taxonomy of Memory

We talked about some of the details of (local and nonlocal) static memory in Chapter 11, but we've not looked in any detail at the range of memory mechanisms supported by C and C++.

Stack and Static Memory

Stack variables are allocated from the executing thread's stack in the scope of the function within which they are defined by adjustment of the stack pointer on entering the scope of their declaration. Static variables are fixed in program global memory, allocated by reservation of space in the global memory area. For the purposes of this section, I focus on the implications of the use of stack memory, although some of the issues discussed also apply to global memory.

Because the allotment of memory for global ...