mingw/info/gdb/Stack.html

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  19 <h2 class="chapter">Examining the Stack</h2>
  20
  21    <p>When your program has stopped, the first thing you need to know is where it
  22 stopped and how it got there.
  23
  24    <p>Each time your program performs a function call, information about the call
  25 is generated.
  26 That information includes the location of the call in your program,
  27 the arguments of the call,
  28 and the local variables of the function being called.
  29 The information is saved in a block of data called a <dfn>stack frame</dfn>.
  30 The stack frames are allocated in a region of memory called the <dfn>call
  31 stack</dfn>.
  32
  33    <p>When your program stops, the GDB commands for examining the
  34 stack allow you to see all of this information.
  35
  36    <p>One of the stack frames is <dfn>selected</dfn> by GDB and many
  37 GDB commands refer implicitly to the selected frame.  In
  38 particular, whenever you ask GDB for the value of a variable in
  39 your program, the value is found in the selected frame.  There are
  40 special GDB commands to select whichever frame you are
  41 interested in. See <a href="Selection.html#Selection">Selecting a frame</a>.
  42
  43    <p>When your program stops, GDB automatically selects the
  44 currently executing frame and describes it briefly, similar to the
  45 <code>frame</code> command (see <a href="Frame-Info.html#Frame%20Info">Information about a frame</a>).
  46
  47 <ul class="menu">
  48 <li><a accesskey="1" href="Frames.html#Frames">Frames</a>:                       Stack frames
  49 <li><a accesskey="2" href="Backtrace.html#Backtrace">Backtrace</a>:                    Backtraces
  50 <li><a accesskey="3" href="Selection.html#Selection">Selection</a>:                    Selecting a frame
  51 <li><a accesskey="4" href="Frame-Info.html#Frame%20Info">Frame Info</a>:                   Information on a frame
  52
  53    </ul>
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