Call stack

In computer science, a call stack is a stack data structure that stores information about the active subroutines and inline blocks of a computer program. This type of stack is also known as an execution stack, program stack, control stack, run-time stack, or machine stack, and is often shortened to simply the "stack". Although maintenance of the call stack is important for the proper functioning of most software, the details are normally hidden and automatic in high-level programming languages. Many computer instruction sets provide special instructions for manipulating stacks.

A call stack is used for several related purposes, but the main reason for having one is to keep track of the point to which each active subroutine should return control when it finishes executing. An active subroutine is one that has been called, but is yet to complete execution, after which control should be handed back to the point of call. Such activations of subroutines may be nested to any level (recursive as a special case), hence the stack structure. For example, if a subroutine DrawSquare calls a subroutine DrawLine from four different places, DrawLine must know where to return when its execution completes. To accomplish this, the address following the instruction that jumps to DrawLine, the return address, is pushed onto the top of the call stack as part of each call.

↑ "Examining the Stack". University of Utah. Archived from the original on September 12, 2019. Retrieved April 3, 2025.

↑ McMaster, S.; Memon, A. (2006). Call Stack Coverage for GUI Test-Suite Reduction (PDF). 17th International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE '06). pp. 33–44. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.88.873. doi:10.1109/ISSRE.2006.19. ISBN 0-7695-2684-5.{{cite conference}}: Cite uses deprecated parameter |citeseerx= (help)

↑ Dijkstra, E. W. (1960). "Recursive Programming". Numerische Mathematik. 2 (1): 312–318. doi:10.1007/BF01386232.