Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!edsews!charette
From: charette@edsews.EDS.COM (Mark A. Charette)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Passing Arguments In C
Keywords: What Goes On Under The Covers?
Message-ID: <2154@edsews.EDS.COM>
Date: 18 Sep 88 17:51:04 GMT
References: <2232@ssc-vax.UUCP> <2822@uoregon.uoregon.edu>
Organization: EDS/TSD - Troy, MI
Lines: 19


One small point - assuming a conventional stack arrangement for passing
values to a function is not ALWAYS correct. I did a (very) little bit
of programming in the 'B' language supplied on a Honeywell 6060 Level 66
a few years back. (I couldn't do too much with it - the on-line manual 
wasn't complete. I think the language was supplied by the University of
Waterloo. It was probably an accident that we had it at all.) Anyway,
the "stack" was an area of memory set aside for parameter passing, set
up as a circular queue. The post-mortem debugger supplied with the language
could read the queue and trace the program back with all of the values
passed to the functions intact (until the queue wrapped).
It was valuable (to me) since I could look at the history of the program
and values.

-- 
Mark Charette                        "Unmitigated seriousness is always out of
Electronic Data Systems               place in human affairs." - G. Santayana
750 Tower Drive              Voice: (313)265-7006
Troy, MI 48007-7019          charette@edsews.eds.com     uunet!edsews!charette