Re: variables in yyparse

[Hans Aberg]

On 2004/12/20 02:00, Laurence Finston at address@hidden wrote:

> What I don't quite understand is why there needs to be a heap at all in the
> `bss' section, when it seems to me from your explanations and Paul's that two
> addresses, a lower and upper bound, would be sufficient.  Or is the `bss'
> section now used only for the stack?  Couldn't the stack be handled the same
> way?  Wouldn't it then be possible to reduce the executable to code,
> initialized data, and some bookkeeping information?
> Clearly, I'm going to have read up on this topic.

What is "bss"? In simpler types of OS (like older PC's), the program is
given a fixed memory allocation, and one may put say code at the bottom,
above that the heap, and highest the stack, growing downwards. Under UNIX,
all those three are different, paged using handles, and thus, those regions
can grow as they like, with no requirement of physical placement in RAM or
on disk.