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I read a blog post that helped me to understand.

What is stack unwinding?

In any language that supports recursive functions (ie. pretty much everything except Fortran 77 and Brainf*ck) the language runtime keeps a stack of what functions are currently executing. Stack unwinding is a way of inspecting, and possibly modifying, that stack.

Why would you want to do that?

The answer may seem obvious, but there are several related, yet subtly different, situations where unwinding is useful or necessary:

1. As a runtime control-flow mechanism (C++ exceptions, C longjmp(), etc).
2. In a debugger, to show the user the stack.
3. In a profiler, to take a sample of the stack.
4. From the program itself (like from a crash handler to show the stack).

These have subtly different requirements. Some of these are performance-critical, some are not. Some require the ability to reconstruct registers from outer frame, some do not. But we'll get into all that in a second.

You can found the full post here.

I read a blog post that helped me understand.

What is stack unwinding?

In any language that supports recursive functions (ie. pretty much everything except Fortran 77 and Brainf*ck) the language runtime keeps a stack of what functions are currently executing. Stack unwinding is a way of inspecting, and possibly modifying, that stack.

Why would you want to do that?

The answer may seem obvious, but there are several related, yet subtly different, situations where unwinding is useful or necessary:

1. As a runtime control-flow mechanism (C++ exceptions, C longjmp(), etc).
2. In a debugger, to show the user the stack.
3. In a profiler, to take a sample of the stack.
4. From the program itself (like from a crash handler to show the stack).

These have subtly different requirements. Some of these are performance-critical, some are not. Some require the ability to reconstruct registers from outer frame, some do not. But we'll get into all that in a second.

You can find the full post here.

I read a blog post that helped me to understand.

What is stack unwinding?

In any language that supports recursive functions (ie. pretty much everything except Fortran 77 and Brainf*ck) the language runtime keeps a stack of what functions are currently executing. Stack unwinding is a way of inspecting, and possibly modifying, that stack.

Why would you want to do that?

The answer may seem obvious, but there are several related, yet subtly different, situations where unwinding is useful or necessary:

1. As a runtime control-flow mechanism (C++ exceptions, C longjmp(), etc).
2. In a debugger, to show the user the stack.
3. In a profiler, to take a sample of the stack.
4. From the program itself (like from a crash handler to show the stack).

These have subtly different requirements. Some of these are performance-critical, some are not. Some require the ability to reconstruct registers from outer frame, some do not. But we'll get into all that in a second.

You can found the full post [here][1]. [1]: http://blog.reverberate.org/2013/05/deep-wizardry-stack-unwinding.html

I read a blog post that helped me to understand.

What is stack unwinding?

In any language that supports recursive functions (ie. pretty much everything except Fortran 77 and Brainf*ck) the language runtime keeps a stack of what functions are currently executing. Stack unwinding is a way of inspecting, and possibly modifying, that stack.

Why would you want to do that?

The answer may seem obvious, but there are several related, yet subtly different, situations where unwinding is useful or necessary:

1. As a runtime control-flow mechanism (C++ exceptions, C longjmp(), etc).
2. In a debugger, to show the user the stack.
3. In a profiler, to take a sample of the stack.
4. From the program itself (like from a crash handler to show the stack).

These have subtly different requirements. Some of these are performance-critical, some are not. Some require the ability to reconstruct registers from outer frame, some do not. But we'll get into all that in a second.

You can found the full post here.

I read a blog post that helped me to understand.

What is stack unwinding?

In any language that supports recursive functions (ie. pretty much everything except Fortran 77 and Brainf*ck) the language runtime keeps a stack of what functions are currently executing. Stack unwinding is a way of inspecting, and possibly modifying, that stack.

Why would you want to do that?

The answer may seem obvious, but there are several related, yet subtly different, situations where unwinding is useful or necessary: As a runtime control-flow mechanism (C++ exceptions, C longjmp(), etc). In a debugger, to show the user the stack. In a profiler, to take a sample of the stack. From the program itself (like from a crash handler to show the stack). These have subtly different requirements. Some of these are performance-critical, some are not. Some require the ability to reconstruct registers from outer frame, some do not. But we'll get into all that in a second.

You can found the full post [here][1]. [1]: http://blog.reverberate.org/2013/05/deep-wizardry-stack-unwinding.html

I read a blog post that helped me to understand.

What is stack unwinding?

In any language that supports recursive functions (ie. pretty much everything except Fortran 77 and Brainf*ck) the language runtime keeps a stack of what functions are currently executing. Stack unwinding is a way of inspecting, and possibly modifying, that stack.

Why would you want to do that?

The answer may seem obvious, but there are several related, yet subtly different, situations where unwinding is useful or necessary:

1. As a runtime control-flow mechanism (C++ exceptions, C longjmp(), etc).
2. In a debugger, to show the user the stack.
3. In a profiler, to take a sample of the stack.
4. From the program itself (like from a crash handler to show the stack).

These have subtly different requirements. Some of these are performance-critical, some are not. Some require the ability to reconstruct registers from outer frame, some do not. But we'll get into all that in a second.

You can found the full post [here][1]. [1]: http://blog.reverberate.org/2013/05/deep-wizardry-stack-unwinding.html