[PD] What exactly is a "stack overflow" ?

[Chuckk Hubbard]

On Dec 17, 2007 11:15 PM, Mathieu Bouchard <matju at artengine.ca> wrote:
> On Mon, 17 Dec 2007, Martin Peach wrote:
>
> > The cpu signals an overflow whenever the stack space runs out (the program
> > tries to access the stack beyond its boundaries)
>
> With Pd, this is never what happens on its own. Instead, just before
> processing each message, a check of the count of nested message
> processings in made (messages sent that are still being processed, not
> counting those scheduled by [delay] and stuff).

I have understood the "overflow" part to mean that "stack overflow"
refers to a situation where the process of writing info to the stack
continues past the memory reserved for the stack, writing to
unspecified places in memory; if a safeguard stops it before then, it
doesn't really overflow, does it?  Seems to me it's an error message
about a stack overflow- perfectly appropriate of course- but that it
doesn't actually happen.

-Chuckk

-- 
http://www.badmuthahubbard.com