LKBEN11179: Does a DLL have an own stack and heap?
LKB | Created: 02/04/2020 | Version: 0 | Language: EN | Rating: 0 | Outdated: False | Marked for deletion: False
Author: Wim Peeters - Keskon GmbH & Co. KG
Symptom
You would like to have a bit more information about DLLs
Cause
none
Solution
When a program is started, it is loaded into memory. During this process, the program becomes a stack and a heap size. As long as the executable or dll is on disk, it does not have a stack or heap. A DLL is dynamically loaded in the same address space as the executable program. After it's loading it shares the stack and heap of the executable. So when a DLL function is called, the same stack is used as when a function in the program is called. This is the case in Windows and Linux although the binary format is different. Windows uses the PE format and Linux used the ELF format.
About the Author
Wim Peeters is electronics engineer with an additional master in IT and over 30 years of experience, including time spent in support, development, consulting, training and database administration. Wim has worked with SQL Server since version 6.5. He has developed in C/C++, Java and C# on Windows and Linux. He writes knowledge base articles to solve IT problems and publishes them on the Lubby Knowledge Platform.