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IAR Embedded Workbench for Arm 9.70.x

Stack options

In this section:

What do you want to do?

  • Learn about the Stack window, see the debugger documentation in the online help system

  • Get reference information about the Stack tool options, see below the line.

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The Stack options are available by choosing Tools>Options or from the context menu in the Stack window.

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Use this page to set options specific to the Stack window.

Note

If there are multiple stack pointers, C-SPY will decide which stack pointer to use for calculations based on the name of the stack block as defined in the linker configuration file. To use a different stack pointer for checks for out-of-bounds stack pointers, stack pointer validity, and stack display, change the name of the stack block in the linker configuration file and the cstartup.s file, or use the C-SPY command line option ‑‑proc_stack_name.

Enable graphical stack display and stack usage tracking

Enables the graphical stack bar available at the top of the Stack window. It also enables detection of stack overflows. For more information about the stack bar and the information it provides, see Monitoring stack usage.

% stack usage threshold. Specify the percentage of stack usage above which C-SPY should issue a warning for stack overflow.

Warn when exceeding stack threshold. Makes C-SPY issue a warning when the stack usage exceeds the threshold specified in the % stack usage threshold option.

Warn when stack pointer is out of bounds

Makes C-SPY issue a warning when the stack pointer is outside the stack memory range.

Stack pointer(s) not valid until program reaches

Specify a location in your application code from where you want the stack display and verification to occur. The Stack window will not display any information about stack usage until execution has reached this location.

By default, C-SPY will not track the stack usage before the main function. If your application does not have a main function, for example, if it is an assembler-only project, you should specify your own start label. If this option is selected, after each reset C-SPY keeps a breakpoint on the given location until it is reached.

Typically, the stack pointer is set up in the system initialization code cstartup, but not necessarily from the first instruction. Select this option to avoid incorrect warnings or misleading stack display for this part of the application.

Warnings

Selects where warnings should be issued. Choose between:

Log

Warnings are issued in the Debug Log window.

Log and alert

Warnings are issued in the Debug Log window and as alert dialog boxes.

Limit stack display to

Limits the amount of memory displayed in the Stack window by specifying a number of bytes, counting from the stack pointer. This can be useful if you have a big stack or if you are only interested in the topmost part of the stack. Using this option can improve the Stack window performance, especially if reading memory from the target system is slow. By default, the Stack window shows the whole stack, or in other words, from the stack pointer to the bottom of the stack. If the debugger cannot determine the memory range for the stack, the byte limit is used even if the option is not selected.

Note

The Stack window does not affect the execution performance of your application, but it might read a large amount of data to update the displayed information when the execution stops.