alloca() allocates memory on the stack rather than on the heap, as in the case of malloc(). So, when I return from the routine the memory is freed. So, actually this solves my problem of freeing up dynamically allocated memory. Freeing of memory allocated through malloc() is a major headache and if somehow missed leads to all sorts of memory problems.
Why is the use of alloca() discouraged in spite of the above features?
The answer is right there in the man page (at least on Linux):
RETURN VALUE
The alloca() function returns a pointer to the beginning of the
allocated space. If the
allocation causes
stack overflow, program behaviour is undefined.
Which isn't to say it should never be used. One of the OSS projects I work on uses it extensively, and as long as you're not abusing it (alloca'ing huge values), it's fine. Once you go past the "few hundred bytes" mark, it's time to use malloc and friends, instead. You may still get allocation failures, but at least you'll have some indication of the failure instead of just blowing out the stack.
One of the most memorable bugs I had was to do with an inline function that used alloca. It manifested itself as a stack overflow (because it allocates on the stack) at random points of the program's execution.
In the header file:
void DoSomething() {
wchar_t* pStr = alloca(100);
//......
}
In the implementation file:
void Process() {
for (i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) {
DoSomething();
}
}
So what happened was the compiler inlined DoSomething function and all the stack allocations were happening inside Process() function and thus blowing the stack up. In my defence (and I wasn't the one who found the issue; I had to go and cry to one of the senior developers when I couldn't fix it), it wasn't straight alloca, it was one of ATL string conversion macros.
So the lesson is - do not use alloca in functions that you think might be inlined.
Old question but nobody mentioned that it should be replaced by variable length arrays.
char arr[size];
instead of
char *arr=alloca(size);
It's in the standard C99 and existed as compiler extension in many compilers.
alloca() is very useful if you can't use a standard local variable because its size would need to be determined at runtime and you can
absolutely guarantee that the pointer you get from alloca() will NEVER be used after this function returns.
You can be fairly safe if you
do not return the pointer, or anything that contains it.
do not store the pointer in any structure allocated on the heap
do not let any other thread use the pointer
The real danger comes from the chance that someone else will violate these conditions sometime later. With that in mind it's great for passing buffers to functions that format text into them :)
As noted in this newsgroup posting, there are a few reasons why using alloca can be considered difficult and dangerous:
Not all compilers support alloca.
Some compilers interpret the intended behaviour of alloca differently, so portability is not guaranteed even between compilers that support it.
Some implementations are buggy.
One issue is that it isn't standard, although it's widely supported. Other things being equal, I'd always use a standard function rather than a common compiler extension.
still alloca use is discouraged, why?
I don't perceive such a consensus. Lots of strong pros; a few cons:
C99 provides variable length arrays, which would often be used preferentially as the notation's more consistent with fixed-length arrays and intuitive overall
many systems have less overall memory/address-space available for the stack than they do for the heap, which makes the program slightly more susceptible to memory exhaustion (through stack overflow): this may be seen as a good or a bad thing - one of the reasons the stack doesn't automatically grow the way heap does is to prevent out-of-control programs from having as much adverse impact on the entire machine
when used in a more local scope (such as a while or for loop) or in several scopes, the memory accumulates per iteration/scope and is not released until the function exits: this contrasts with normal variables defined in the scope of a control structure (e.g. for {int i = 0; i < 2; ++i) { X } would accumulate alloca-ed memory requested at X, but memory for a fixed-sized array would be recycled per iteration).
modern compilers typically do not inline functions that call alloca, but if you force them then the alloca will happen in the callers' context (i.e. the stack won't be released until the caller returns)
a long time ago alloca transitioned from a non-portable feature/hack to a Standardised extension, but some negative perception may persist
the lifetime is bound to the function scope, which may or may not suit the programmer better than malloc's explicit control
having to use malloc encourages thinking about the deallocation - if that's managed through a wrapper function (e.g. WonderfulObject_DestructorFree(ptr)), then the function provides a point for implementation clean up operations (like closing file descriptors, freeing internal pointers or doing some logging) without explicit changes to client code: sometimes it's a nice model to adopt consistently
in this pseudo-OO style of programming, it's natural to want something like WonderfulObject* p = WonderfulObject_AllocConstructor(); - that's possible when the "constructor" is a function returning malloc-ed memory (as the memory remains allocated after the function returns the value to be stored in p), but not if the "constructor" uses alloca
a macro version of WonderfulObject_AllocConstructor could achieve this, but "macros are evil" in that they can conflict with each other and non-macro code and create unintended substitutions and consequent difficult-to-diagnose problems
missing free operations can be detected by ValGrind, Purify etc. but missing "destructor" calls can't always be detected at all - one very tenuous benefit in terms of enforcement of intended usage; some alloca() implementations (such as GCC's) use an inlined macro for alloca(), so runtime substitution of a memory-usage diagnostic library isn't possible the way it is for malloc/realloc/free (e.g. electric fence)
some implementations have subtle issues: for example, from the Linux manpage:
On many systems alloca() cannot be used inside the list of arguments of a function call, because the stack space reserved by alloca() would appear on the stack in the middle of the space for the function arguments.
I know this question is tagged C, but as a C++ programmer I thought I'd use C++ to illustrate the potential utility of alloca: the code below (and here at ideone) creates a vector tracking differently sized polymorphic types that are stack allocated (with lifetime tied to function return) rather than heap allocated.
#include <alloca.h>
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
struct Base
{
virtual ~Base() { }
virtual int to_int() const = 0;
};
struct Integer : Base
{
Integer(int n) : n_(n) { }
int to_int() const { return n_; }
int n_;
};
struct Double : Base
{
Double(double n) : n_(n) { }
int to_int() const { return -n_; }
double n_;
};
inline Base* factory(double d) __attribute__((always_inline));
inline Base* factory(double d)
{
if ((double)(int)d != d)
return new (alloca(sizeof(Double))) Double(d);
else
return new (alloca(sizeof(Integer))) Integer(d);
}
int main()
{
std::vector<Base*> numbers;
numbers.push_back(factory(29.3));
numbers.push_back(factory(29));
numbers.push_back(factory(7.1));
numbers.push_back(factory(2));
numbers.push_back(factory(231.0));
for (std::vector<Base*>::const_iterator i = numbers.begin();
i != numbers.end(); ++i)
{
std::cout << *i << ' ' << (*i)->to_int() << '\n';
(*i)->~Base(); // optionally / else Undefined Behaviour iff the
// program depends on side effects of destructor
}
}
Lots of interesting answers to this "old" question, even some relatively new answers, but I didn't find any that mention this....
When used properly and with care, consistent use of alloca()
(perhaps application-wide) to handle small variable-length allocations
(or C99 VLAs, where available) can lead to lower overall stack
growth than an otherwise equivalent implementation using oversized
local arrays of fixed length. So alloca() may be good for your stack if you use it carefully.
I found that quote in.... OK, I made that quote up. But really, think about it....
#j_random_hacker is very right in his comments under other answers: Avoiding the use of alloca() in favor of oversized local arrays does not make your program safer from stack overflows (unless your compiler is old enough to allow inlining of functions that use alloca() in which case you should upgrade, or unless you use alloca() inside loops, in which case you should... not use alloca() inside loops).
I've worked on desktop/server environments and embedded systems. A lot of embedded systems don't use a heap at all (they don't even link in support for it), for reasons that include the perception that dynamically allocated memory is evil due to the risks of memory leaks on an application that never ever reboots for years at a time, or the more reasonable justification that dynamic memory is dangerous because it can't be known for certain that an application will never fragment its heap to the point of false memory exhaustion. So embedded programmers are left with few alternatives.
alloca() (or VLAs) may be just the right tool for the job.
I've seen time & time again where a programmer makes a stack-allocated buffer "big enough to handle any possible case". In a deeply nested call tree, repeated use of that (anti-?)pattern leads to exaggerated stack use. (Imagine a call tree 20 levels deep, where at each level for different reasons, the function blindly over-allocates a buffer of 1024 bytes "just to be safe" when generally it will only use 16 or less of them, and only in very rare cases may use more.) An alternative is to use alloca() or VLAs and allocate only as much stack space as your function needs, to avoid unnecessarily burdening the stack. Hopefully when one function in the call tree needs a larger-than-normal allocation, others in the call tree are still using their normal small allocations, and the overall application stack usage is significantly less than if every function blindly over-allocated a local buffer.
But if you choose to use alloca()...
Based on other answers on this page, it seems that VLAs should be safe (they don't compound stack allocations if called from within a loop), but if you're using alloca(), be careful not to use it inside a loop, and make sure your function can't be inlined if there's any chance it might be called within another function's loop.
All of the other answers are correct. However, if the thing you want to alloc using alloca() is reasonably small, I think that it's a good technique that's faster and more convenient than using malloc() or otherwise.
In other words, alloca( 0x00ffffff ) is dangerous and likely to cause overflow, exactly as much as char hugeArray[ 0x00ffffff ]; is. Be cautious and reasonable and you'll be fine.
I don't think anyone has mentioned this: Use of alloca in a function will hinder or disable some optimizations that could otherwise be applied in the function, since the compiler cannot know the size of the function's stack frame.
For instance, a common optimization by C compilers is to eliminate use of the frame pointer within a function, frame accesses are made relative to the stack pointer instead; so there's one more register for general use. But if alloca is called within the function, the difference between sp and fp will be unknown for part of the function, so this optimization cannot be done.
Given the rarity of its use, and its shady status as a standard function, compiler designers quite possibly disable any optimization that might cause trouble with alloca, if would take more than a little effort to make it work with alloca.
UPDATE:
Since variable-length local arrays have been added to C, and since these present very similar code-generation issues to the compiler as alloca, I see that 'rarity of use and shady status' does not apply to the underlying mechanism; but I would still suspect that use of either alloca or VLA tends to compromise code generation within a function that uses them. I would welcome any feedback from compiler designers.
Everyone has already pointed out the big thing which is potential undefined behavior from a stack overflow but I should mention that the Windows environment has a great mechanism to catch this using structured exceptions (SEH) and guard pages. Since the stack only grows as needed, these guard pages reside in areas that are unallocated. If you allocate into them (by overflowing the stack) an exception is thrown.
You can catch this SEH exception and call _resetstkoflw to reset the stack and continue on your merry way. Its not ideal but it's another mechanism to at least know something has gone wrong when the stuff hits the fan. *nix might have something similar that I'm not aware of.
I recommend capping your max allocation size by wrapping alloca and tracking it internally. If you were really hardcore about it you could throw some scope sentries at the top of your function to track any alloca allocations in the function scope and sanity check this against the max amount allowed for your project.
Also, in addition to not allowing for memory leaks alloca does not cause memory fragmentation which is pretty important. I don't think alloca is bad practice if you use it intelligently, which is basically true for everything. :-)
One pitfall with alloca is that longjmp rewinds it.
That is to say, if you save a context with setjmp, then alloca some memory, then longjmp to the context, you may lose the alloca memory. The stack pointer is back where it was and so the memory is no longer reserved; if you call a function or do another alloca, you will clobber the original alloca.
To clarify, what I'm specifically referring to here is a situation whereby longjmp does not return out of the function where the alloca took place! Rather, a function saves context with setjmp; then allocates memory with alloca and finally a longjmp takes place to that context. That function's alloca memory is not all freed; just all the memory that it allocated since the setjmp. Of course, I'm speaking about an observed behavior; no such requirement is documented of any alloca that I know.
The focus in the documentation is usually on the concept that alloca memory is associated with a function activation, not with any block; that multiple invocations of alloca just grab more stack memory which is all released when the function terminates. Not so; the memory is actually associated with the procedure context. When the context is restored with longjmp, so is the prior alloca state. It's a consequence of the stack pointer register itself being used for allocation, and also (necessarily) saved and restored in the jmp_buf.
Incidentally, this, if it works that way, provides a plausible mechanism for deliberately freeing memory that was allocated with alloca.
I have run into this as the root cause of a bug.
Here's why:
char x;
char *y=malloc(1);
char *z=alloca(&x-y);
*z = 1;
Not that anyone would write this code, but the size argument you're passing to alloca almost certainly comes from some sort of input, which could maliciously aim to get your program to alloca something huge like that. After all, if the size isn't based on input or doesn't have the possibility to be large, why didn't you just declare a small, fixed-size local buffer?
Virtually all code using alloca and/or C99 vlas has serious bugs which will lead to crashes (if you're lucky) or privilege compromise (if you're not so lucky).
alloca () is nice and efficient... but it is also deeply broken.
broken scope behavior (function scope instead of block scope)
use inconsistant with malloc (alloca()-ted pointer shouldn't be freed, henceforth you have to track where you pointers are coming from to free() only those you got with malloc())
bad behavior when you also use inlining (scope sometimes goes to the caller function depending if callee is inlined or not).
no stack boundary check
undefined behavior in case of failure (does not return NULL like malloc... and what does failure means as it does not check stack boundaries anyway...)
not ansi standard
In most cases you can replace it using local variables and majorant size. If it's used for large objects, putting them on the heap is usually a safer idea.
If you really need it C you can use VLA (no vla in C++, too bad). They are much better than alloca() regarding scope behavior and consistency. As I see it VLA are a kind of alloca() made right.
Of course a local structure or array using a majorant of the needed space is still better, and if you don't have such majorant heap allocation using plain malloc() is probably sane.
I see no sane use case where you really really need either alloca() or VLA.
Processes only have a limited amount of stack space available - far less than the amount of memory available to malloc().
By using alloca() you dramatically increase your chances of getting a Stack Overflow error (if you're lucky, or an inexplicable crash if you're not).
A place where alloca() is especially dangerous than malloc() is the kernel - kernel of a typical operating system has a fixed sized stack space hard-coded into one of its header; it is not as flexible as the stack of an application. Making a call to alloca() with an unwarranted size may cause the kernel to crash.
Certain compilers warn usage of alloca() (and even VLAs for that matter) under certain options that ought to be turned on while compiling a kernel code - here, it is better to allocate memory in the heap that is not fixed by a hard-coded limit.
alloca is not worse than a variable-length array (VLA), but it's riskier than allocating on the heap.
On x86 (and most often on ARM), the stack grows downwards, and that brings with it a certain amount of risk: if you accidentally write beyond the block allocated with alloca (due to a buffer overflow for example), then you will overwrite the return address of your function, because that one is located "above" on the stack, i.e. after your allocated block.
The consequence of this is two-fold:
The program will crash spectacularly and it will be impossible to tell why or where it crashed (stack will most likely unwind to a random address due to the overwritten frame pointer).
It makes buffer overflow many times more dangerous, since a malicious user can craft a special payload which would be put on the stack and can therefore end up executed.
In contrast, if you write beyond a block on the heap you "just" get heap corruption. The program will probably terminate unexpectedly but will unwind the stack properly, thereby reducing the chance of malicious code execution.
Sadly the truly awesome alloca() is missing from the almost awesome tcc. Gcc does have alloca().
It sows the seed of its own destruction. With return as the destructor.
Like malloc() it returns an invalid pointer on fail which will segfault on modern systems with a MMU (and hopefully restart those without).
Unlike auto variables you can specify the size at run time.
It works well with recursion. You can use static variables to achieve something similar to tail recursion and use just a few others pass info to each iteration.
If you push too deep you are assured of a segfault (if you have an MMU).
Note that malloc() offers no more as it returns NULL (which will also segfault if assigned) when the system is out of memory. I.e. all you can do is bail or just try to assign it any way.
To use malloc() I use globals and assign them NULL. If the pointer is not NULL I free it before I use malloc().
You can also use realloc() as general case if want copy any existing data. You need to check pointer before to work out if you are going to copy or concatenate after the realloc().
3.2.5.2 Advantages of alloca
Actually, alloca is not guaranteed to use the stack.
Indeed, the gcc-2.95 implementation of alloca allocates memory from the heap using malloc itself. Also that implementation is buggy, it may lead to a memory leak and to some unexpected behavior if you call it inside a block with a further use of goto. Not, to say that you should never use it, but some times alloca leads to more overhead than it releaves frome.
In my opinion, alloca(), where available, should be used only in a constrained manner. Very much like the use of "goto", quite a large number of otherwise reasonable people have strong aversion not just to the use of, but also the existence of, alloca().
For embedded use, where the stack size is known and limits can be imposed via convention and analysis on the size of the allocation, and where the compiler cannot be upgraded to support C99+, use of alloca() is fine, and I've been known to use it.
When available, VLAs may have some advantages over alloca(): The compiler can generate stack limit checks that will catch out-of-bounds access when array style access is used (I don't know if any compilers do this, but it can be done), and analysis of the code can determine whether the array access expressions are properly bounded. Note that, in some programming environments, such as automotive, medical equipment, and avionics, this analysis has to be done even for fixed size arrays, both automatic (on the stack) and static allocation (global or local).
On architectures that store both data and return addresses/frame pointers on the stack (from what I know, that's all of them), any stack allocated variable can be dangerous because the address of the variable can be taken, and unchecked input values might permit all sorts of mischief.
Portability is less of a concern in the embedded space, however it is a good argument against use of alloca() outside of carefully controlled circumstances.
Outside of the embedded space, I've used alloca() mostly inside logging and formatting functions for efficiency, and in a non-recursive lexical scanner, where temporary structures (allocated using alloca() are created during tokenization and classification, then a persistent object (allocated via malloc()) is populated before the function returns. The use of alloca() for the smaller temporary structures greatly reduces fragmentation when the persistent object is allocated.
Why no one mentions this example introduced by GNU documention?
https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Advantages-of-Alloca.html
Nonlocal exits done with longjmp (see Non-Local Exits) automatically
free the space allocated with alloca when they exit through the
function that called alloca. This is the most important reason to use
alloca
Suggest reading order 1->2->3->1:
https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Advantages-of-Alloca.html
Intro and Details from Non-Local Exits
Alloca Example
I don't think that anybody has mentioned this, but alloca also has some serious security issues not necessarily present with malloc (though these issues also arise with any stack based arrays, dynamic or not). Since the memory is allocated on the stack, buffer overflows/underflows have much more serious consequences than with just malloc.
In particular, the return address for a function is stored on the stack. If this value gets corrupted, your code could be made to go to any executable region of memory. Compilers go to great lengths to make this difficult (in particular by randomizing address layout). However, this is clearly worse than just a stack overflow since the best case is a SEGFAULT if the return value is corrupted, but it could also start executing a random piece of memory or in the worst case some region of memory which compromises your program's security.
IMO the biggest risk with alloca and variable length arrays is it can fail in a very dangerous manner if the allocation size is unexpectedly large.
Allocations on the stack typically have no checking in user code.
Modern operating systems will generally put a guard page in place below* to detect stack overflow. When the stack overflows the kernel may either expand the stack or kill the process. Linux expanded this guard region in 2017 to be significantly large than a page, but it's still finite in size.
So as a rule it's best to avoid allocating more than a page on the stack before making use of the previous allocations. With alloca or variable length arrays it's easy to end up allowing an attacker to make arbitrary size allocations on the stack and hence skip over any guard page and access arbitrary memory.
* on most widespread systems today the stack grows downwards.
Most answers here largely miss the point: there's a reason why using _alloca() is potentially worse than merely storing large objects in the stack.
The main difference between automatic storage and _alloca() is that the latter suffers from an additional (serious) problem: the allocated block is not controlled by the compiler, so there's no way for the compiler to optimize or recycle it.
Compare:
while (condition) {
char buffer[0x100]; // Chill.
/* ... */
}
with:
while (condition) {
char* buffer = _alloca(0x100); // Bad!
/* ... */
}
The problem with the latter should be obvious.
This is my problem in essence. In the life of a function, I generate some integers, then use the array of integers in an algorithm that is also part of the same function. The array of integers will only be used within the function, so naturally it makes sense to store the array on the stack.
The problem is I don't know the size of the array until I'm finished generating all the integers.
I know how to allocate a fixed size and variable sized array on the stack. However, I do not know how to grow an array on the stack, and that seems like the best way to solve my problem. I'm fairly certain this is possible to do in assembly, you just increment stack pointer and store an int for each int generated, so the array of ints would be at the end of the stack frame. Is this possible to do in C though?
I would disagree with your assertion that "so naturally it makes sense to store the array on the stack". Stack memory is really designed for when you know the size at compile time. I would argue that dynamic memory is the way to go here
C doesn't define what the "stack" is. It only has static, automatic and dynamic allocations. Static and automatic allocations are handled by the compiler, and only dynamic allocation puts the controls in your hands. Thus, if you want to manually deallocate an object and allocate a bigger one, you must use dynamic allocation.
Don't use dynamic arrays on the stack (compare Why is the use of alloca() not considered good practice?), better allocate memory from the heap using malloc and resize it using realloc.
Never Use alloca()
IMHO this point hasn't been made well enough in the standard references.
One rule of thumb is:
If you're not prepared to statically allocate the maximum possible size as a
fixed length C array then you shouldn't do it dynamically with alloca() either.
Why? The reason you're trying to avoid malloc() is performance.
alloca() will be slower and won't work in any circumstance static allocation will fail. It's generally less likely to succeed than malloc() too.
One thing is sure. Statically allocating the maximum will outdo both malloc() and alloca().
Static allocation is typically damn near a no-op. Most systems will advance the stack pointer for the function call anyway. There's no appreciable difference for how far.
So what you're telling me is you care about performance but want to hold back on a no-op solution? Think about why you feel like that.
The overwhelming likelihood is you're concerned about the size allocated.
But as explained it's free and it gets taken back. What's the worry?
If the worry is "I don't have a maximum or don't know if it will overflow the stack" then you shouldn't be using alloca() because you don't have a maximum and know it if it will overflow the stack.
If you do have a maximum and know it isn't going to blow the stack then statically allocate the maximum and go home. It's a free lunch - remember?
That makes alloca() either wrong or sub-optimal.
Every time you use alloca() you're either wasting your time or coding in one of the difficult-to-test-for arbitrary scaling ceilings that sleep quietly until things really matter then f**k up someone's day.
Don't.
PS: If you need a big 'workspace' but the malloc()/free() overhead is a bottle-neck for example called repeatedly in a big loop, then consider allocating the workspace outside the loop and carrying it from iteration to iteration. You may need to reallocate the workspace if you find a 'big' case but it's often possible to divide the number of allocations by 100 or even 1000.
Footnote:
There must be some theoretical algorithm where a() calls b() and if a() requires a massive environment b() doesn't and vice versa.
In that event there could be some kind of freaky play-off where the stack overflow is prevented by alloca(). I have never heard of or seen such an algorithm. Plausible specimens will be gratefully received!
The innards of the C compiler requires stack sizes to be fixed or calculable at compile time. It's been a while since I used C (now a C++ convert) and I don't know exactly why this is. http://gribblelab.org/CBootcamp/7_Memory_Stack_vs_Heap.html provides a useful comparison of the pros and cons of the two approaches.
I appreciate your assembly code analogy but C is largely managed, if that makes any sense, by the Operating System, which imposes/provides the task, process and stack notations.
In order to address your issue dynamic memory allocation looks ideal.
int *a = malloc(sizeof(int));
and dereference it to store the value .
Each time a new integer needs to be added to the existing list of integers
int *temp = realloc(a,sizeof(int) * (n+1)); /* n = number of new elements */
if(temp != NULL)
a = temp;
Once done using this memory free() it.
Is there an upper limit on the size? If you can impose one, so the size is at most a few tens of KiB, then yes alloca is appropriate (especially if this is a leaf function, not one calling other functions that might also allocate non-tiny arrays this way).
Or since this is C, not C++, use a variable-length array like int foo[n];.
But always sanity-check your size, otherwise it's a stack-clash vulnerability waiting to happen. (Where a huge allocation moves the stack pointer so far that it ends up in the middle of another memory region, where other things get overwritten by local variables and return addresses.) Some distros enable hardening options that make GCC generate code to touch every page in between when moving the stack pointer by more than a page.
It's usually not worth it to check the size and use alloc for small, malloc for large, since you also need another check at the end of your function to call free if the size was large. It might give a speedup, but this makes your code more complicated and more likely to get broken during maintenance if future editors don't notice that the memory is only sometimes malloced. So only consider a dual strategy if profiling shows this is actually important, and you care about performance more than simplicity / human-readability / maintainability for this particular project.
A size check for an upper limit (else log an error and exit) is more reasonable, but then you have to choose an upper limit beyond which your program will intentionally bail out, even though there's plenty of RAM you're choosing not to use. If there is a reasonable limit where you can be pretty sure something's gone wrong, like the input being intentionally malicious from an exploit, then great, if(size>limit) error(); int arr[size];.
If neither of those conditions can be satisfied, your use case is not appropriate for C automatic storage (stack memory) because it might need to be large. Just use dynamic allocation autom don't want malloc.
Windows x86/x64 the default user-space stack size is 1MiB, I think. On x86-64 Linux it's 8MiB. (ulimit -s). Thread stacks are allocated with the same size. But remember, your function will be part of a chain of function calls (so if every function used a large fraction of the total size, you'd have a problem if they called each other). And any stack memory you dirty won't get handed back to the OS even after the function returns, unlike malloc/free where a large allocation can give back the memory instead of leaving it on the free list.
Kernel thread stack are much smaller, like 16 KiB total for x86-64 Linux, so you never want VLAs or alloca in kernel code, except maybe for a tiny max size, like up to 16 or maybe 32 bytes, not large compared to the size of a pointer that would be needed to store a kmalloc return value.
This question already has answers here:
Closed 13 years ago.
Possible Duplicate:
When is it best to use a Stack instead of a Heap and vice versa?
I've read a few of the other questions regarding the heap vs stack, but they seem to focus more on what the heap/stack do rather than why you would use them.
It seems to me that stack allocation would almost always be preferred since it is quicker (just moving the stack pointer vs looking for free space in the heap), and you don't have to manually free allocated memory when you're done using it. The only reason I can see for using heap allocation is if you wanted to create an object in a function and then use it outside that functions scope, since stack allocated memory is automatically unallocated after returning from the function.
Are there other reasons for using heap allocation instead of stack allocation that I am not aware of?
There are a few reasons:
The main one is that with heap allocation, you have the most flexible control over the object's lifetime (from malloc/calloc to free);
Stack space is typically a more limited resource than heap space, at least in default configurations;
A failure to allocate heap space can be handled gracefully, whereas running out of stack space is often unrecoverable.
Without the flexible object lifetime, useful data structures such as binary trees and linked lists would be virtually impossible to write.
You want an allocation to live beyond a function invocation
You want to conserve stack space (which is typically limited to a few MBs)
You're working with re-locatable memory (Win16, databases, etc.), or want to recover from allocation failures.
Variable length anything. You can fake around this, but your code will be really nasty.
The big one is #1. As soon as you get into any sort of concurrency or IPC #1 is everywhere. Even most non-trivial single threaded applications are tricky to devise without some heap allocation. That'd practically be faking a functional language in C/C++.
So I want to make a string. I can make it on the heap or on the stack. Let's try both:
char *heap = malloc(14);
if(heap == NULL)
{
// bad things happened!
}
strcat(heap, "Hello, world!");
And for the stack:
char stack[] = "Hello, world!";
So now I have these two strings in their respective places. Later, I want to make them longer:
char *tmp = realloc(heap, 20);
if(tmp == NULL)
{
// bad things happened!
}
heap = tmp;
memmove(heap + 13, heap + 7);
memcpy(heap + 7, "cruel ", 6);
And for the stack:
// umm... What?
This is only one benefit, and others have mentioned other benefits, but this is a rather nice one. With the heap, we can at least try to make our allocated space larger. With the stack, we're stuck with what we have. If we want room to grow, we have to declare it all up front, and we all know how it stinks to see this:
char username[MAX_BUF_SIZE];
The most obvious rationale for using the heap is when you call a function and need something of unknown length returned. Sometimes the caller may pass a memory block and size to the function, but at other times this is just impractical, especially if the returned stuff is complex (e.g. a collection of different objects with pointers flying around, etc.).
Size limits are a huge dealbreaker in a lot of cases. The stack is usually measured in the low megabytes or even kilobytes (that's for everything on the stack), whereas all modern PCs allow you a few gigabytes of heap. So if you're going to be using a large amount of data, you absolutely need the heap.
just to add
you can use alloca to allocate memory on the stack, but again memory on the stack is limited and also the space exists only during the function execution only.
that does not mean everything should be allocated on the heap. like all design decisions this is also somewhat difficult, a "judicious" combination of both should be used.
Besides manual control of object's lifetime (which you mentioned), the other reasons for using heap would include:
Run-time control over object's size (both initial size and it's "later" size, during the program's execution).
For example, you can allocate an array of certain size, which is only known at run time.
With the introduction of VLA (Variable Length Arrays) in C99, it became possible to allocate arrays of fixed run-time size without using heap (this is basically a language-level implementation of 'alloca' functionality). However, in other cases you'd still need heap even in C99.
Run-time control over the total number of objects.
For example, when you build a binary tree stucture, you can't meaningfully allocate the nodes of the tree on the stack in advance. You have to use heap to allocated them "on demand".
Low-level technical considerations, as limited stack space (others already mentioned that).
When you need a large, say, I/O buffer, even for a short time (inside a single function) it makes more sense to request it from the heap instead of declaring a large automatic array.
Stack variables (often called 'automatic variables') is best used for things you want to always be the same, and always be small.
int x;
char foo[32];
Are all stack allocations, These are fixed at compile time too.
The best reason for heap allocation is that you cant always know how much space you need. You often only know this once the program is running. You might have an idea of limits but you would only want to use the exact amount of space required.
If you had to read in a file that could be anything from 1k to 50mb, you would not do this:-
int readdata ( FILE * f ) {
char inputdata[50*1024*1025];
...
return x;
}
That would try to allocate 50mb on the stack, which would usually fail as the stack is usually limited to 256k anyway.
The stack and heap share the same "open" memory space and will have to eventually come to a point where they meet, if you use the entire segment of memory. Keeping the balance between the space that each of them use will have amortized cost later for allocation and de-allocation of memory a smaller asymptotic value.
You may think that this is a coincidence that the topic of my question is similar to the name of the forum but I actually got here by googling the term "stack overflow".
I use the OPNET network simulator in which I program using C. I think I am having a problem with big array sizes. It seems that I am hitting some sort of memory allocation limitation. It may have to do with OPNET, Windows, my laptop memory or most likely C language. The problem is caused when I try to use nested arrays with a total number of elements coming to several thousand integers. I think I am exceeding an overall memory allocation limit and I am wondering if there is a way to increase this cap.
Here's the exact problem description:
I basically have a routing table. Let's call it routing_tbl[n], meaning I am supporting 30 nodes (routers). Now, for each node in this table, I keep info. about many (hundreds) available paths, in an array called paths[p]. Again, for each path in this array, I keep the list of nodes that belong to it in an array called hops[h]. So, I am using at least nph integers worth of memory but this table contains other information as well. In the same function, I am also using another nested array that consumes almost 40,000 integers as well.
As soon as I run my simulation, it quits complaining about stack overflow. It works when I reduce the total size of the routing table.
What do you think causes the problem and how can it be solved?
Much appreciated
Ali
It may help if you post some code. Edit the question to include the problem function and the error.
Meanwhile, here's a very generic answer:
The two principal causes of a stack overflow are 1) a recursive function, or 2) the allocation of a large number of local variables.
Recursion
if your function calls itself, like this:
int recurse(int number) {
return (recurse(number));
}
Since local variables and function arguments are stored on the stack, then it will in fill the stack and cause a stack overflow.
Large local variables
If you try to allocate a large array of local variables then you can overflow the stack in one easy go. A function like this may cause the issue:
void hugeStack (void) {
unsigned long long reallyBig[100000000][1000000000];
...
}
There is quite a detailed answer to this similar question.
Somehow you are using a lot of stack. Possible causes include that you're creating the routing table on the stack, you're passing it on the stack, or else you're generating lots of calls (eg by recursively processing the whole thing).
In the first two cases you should create it on the heap and pass around a pointer to it. In the third case you'll need to rewrite your algorithm in an iterative form.
Stack overflows can happen in C when the number of embedded recursive calls is too high. Perhaps you are calling a function from itself too many times?
This error may also be due to allocating too much memory in static declarations. You can switch to dynamic allocations through malloc() to fix this type of problem.
Is there a reason why you cannot use the debugger on this program?
It depends on where you have declared the variable.
A local variable (i.e. one declared on the stack is limited by the maximum frame size) This is a limit of the compiler you are using (and can usually be adjusted with compiler flags).
A dynamically allocated object (i.e. one that is on the heap) is limited by the amount of available memory. This is a property of the OS (and can technically by larger the physical memory if you have a smart OS).
Many operating systems dynamically expand the stack as you use more of it. When you start writing to a memory address that's just beyond the stack, the OS assumes your stack has just grown a bit more and allocates it an extra page (usually 4096Kib on x86 - exactly 1024 ints).
The problem is, on the x86 (and some other architectures) the stack grows downwards but C arrays grow upwards. This means if you access the start of a large array, you'll be accessing memory that's more than a page away from the edge of the stack.
If you initialise your array to 0 starting from the end of the array (that's right, make a for loop to do it), the errors might go away. If they do, this is indeed the problem.
You might be able to find some OS API functions to force stack allocation, or compiler pragmas/flags. I'm not sure about how this can be done portably, except of course for using malloc() and free()!
You are unlikely to run into a stack overflow with unthreaded compiled C unless you do something particularly egregious like have runaway recursion or a cosmic memory leak. However, your simulator probably has a threading package which will impose stack size limits. When you start a new thread it will allocate a chunk of memory for the stack for that thread. Likely, there is a parameter you can set somewhere that establishes the the default stack size, or there may be a way to grow the stack dynamically. For example, pthreads has a function pthread_attr_setstacksize() which you call prior to starting a new thread to set its size. Your simulator may or may not be using pthreads. Consult your simulator reference documentation.