Feature: New memory layout #133
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Stack first is not only the new default, but placing the stack after the global data largely does not make sense anymore.
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This pull request alters the memory layout of a typical Onyx program, specifically how the stack operates. Up until this point, the stack grew up towards the maximum address, i.e. setting up the call frame involved adding to the stack pointer. This was sufficient, but as I am looking to the future of interoperating with other libraries compiled to WASM, I noticed that all other languages/compilers have the stack growing down towards 0. While this choice is largely arbitrary, it makes more sense to make Onyx conform to this memory model.
In short, the memory went from looking like this:
To this:
Aside from being compatible with other languages, this model has one great benefit: if the stack is overflowed, the program will crash, instead of blinding overwriting the heap and corrupting memory.