Argument Area

  • Article

Each calling function must allocate an argument area within its stack frame with sufficient space to hold all arguments passed to any called function, regardless of whether it passes the arguments in argument registers. This contiguous block of memory provides home locations for those arguments that the function cannot allocate to registers in the called routine.

The argument area may be allocated dynamically immediately prior to the performance of a function call. Thus, a function can avoid the need to maintain the largest required argument area throughout its execution. In such a situation, the alloca() rules apply.

The minimum argument area is 4 32-bit words, or 16 bytes. Many called routines assume that these four words are always available, regardless of the number of arguments actually passed.

See Also

SH-4 Parameter Passing | Argument Block | Argument Block Mapping | Floating-Point Parameter Example | SH-4 Functions with Variable Argument Lists

 Last updated on Thursday, April 08, 2004

© 1992-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.