Gerhard Fiedler wrote:
> At 11:43 12/23/98 -0700, Dwayne Reid wrote:
> >Andy Kunz wrote:
> >>A stack overflow is no problem in the real world - the stack is
> circular.
> >
> >Sorry Andy - the stack is NOT circular (thank god)!
> >
> >The best way that I have come up with is to think of the stack as open
> >ended.  If you push too many items onto the stack, the excess items are
> >lost.  When popping the stack, all items move up one level; with the very
> >end of the stack keeping its current value.
>
> isn't that exactly what one means when saying "circular"? the way it works
> looks very suspiciously like a circular stack... build one, and you'll see
> that works exactly like this.

Gerhard's right, you've just described a circular stack.  Remember that it's
not the items pushed onto the stack that go in a circle, it's the pointer to
the current item in the stack.  Even the PIC16C7x manual says "The stack
operates as a circular buffer".  See the section on "PCL and PCLATH".

-Ed V.
Agile Controls

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