What have we got so far?

We've talked about the stack in rather generic terms and how it grows. We've taken a look at a specific hardware architecture's stack frame structure. We've gotten down into the intricacies of the SPARC processor, talking about registers and windows . We've explained the magic behind the SPARC assembly instructions used when moving from routine to routine. And we've talked about how the UNIX kernel supports the SPARC windowing concept and helps maintain the stack.

By now, you should be itching to see all of this work for you on your own system! In the next chapter, we will compile our simple little program and, executing it under the control of adb , we'll step through it, watching the registers change and our stack grow.