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submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by inari@piefed.zip to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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[-] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

but I don’t think the stack is read only

I don't mean the stack is read only (edit: yes I meant that in my previous reply, but got confused myself, I actually never thought the entire stack being read only, I was only thinking about those specific variables and literal strings, sorry for confusion), but certain variables holding values that are only used to read and not change. In example you cannot change literals, therefore they are read only values. In example if you have a program that prints "Hello Lemmy", that string is a literal that cannot be altered, and it is found in the application itself, as part of the binary. That part maybe is marked as read only?

[-] blackbrook@lemmy.ml 1 points 44 minutes ago

Right, a stack that was itself read-only would be hard to use! :^D C definitely lets you modify the things in the stack. (Ah the fun of bugs where you accidentally overwrite other shit on the stack!) I don't know Rust, but it would not surprise me if Rust only had immutable things on the stack.

[-] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 points 26 minutes ago

No, its not only immutable things on the stack. I mean if you include a literal constant string such as "MIT LICENSE", that is part of the compiled binary file. So it is unchangeable. Because you cannot change a literal, a "1" is always a "1" in the compiled binary file. And those are basically read only by their nature and loaded into the stack. I think or guess in C it is the same. Or any language for that matter.

I started to think I was hallucinating. I guess what I was thinking is this part https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_segment . There are read-only data segments too.

this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2026
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