"Status stack overflow" in C with simple iteration

Question

I started to learn C recently. I use Code::Blocks with MinGW and Cygwin GCC.

I made a very simple prime sieve for Project Euler problem 10, which prints primes below a certain limit to stdout. It works fine until roughly 500000 as limit, but above that my minGW-compiled .exe crashes and the GCC-compiled one throws a "STATUS_STACK_OVERFLOW" exception.

I'm puzzled as to why, since the code is totally non-recursive, consisting of simple for loops.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <math.h>
#define LIMIT 550000

int main()
{
    int sieve[LIMIT+1] = {0};
    int i, n;

    for (i = 2; i <= (int)floor(sqrt(LIMIT)); i++){
        if (!sieve[i]){
            printf("%d\n", i);
            for (n = 2; n <= LIMIT/i; n++){
                sieve[n*i] = 1;
            }
        }
    }
    for (i; i <= LIMIT; i++){
        if (!sieve[i]){
            printf("%d\n", i);
        }
    }
    return 0;
}

Try to set a higher ulimit. Allocating 550000 integers on the stack can cause that. — Benoit
– Benoit, Commented Mar 6, 2012 at 17:34

MByD · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-06 17:33:33Z

4

Seems like you cannot allocate 550000 ints on the stack, allocate them dynamically instead.

int * sieve;
sieve = malloc(sizeof(int) * (LIMIT+1));

answered Mar 6, 2012 at 17:33

MByD

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1 Comment

vsz Over a year ago

For a short-term solution you can also adjust your compiler settings. Not a good idea if you wake up one day and say that you need 55000000 instead of 550000.

Agnius Vasiliauskas · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-06 18:13:18Z

3

Your basic options are to store variables in data segment when your memory chunk is bigger than stack:

allocating memory for array in heap with malloc (as @Binyamin explained)
storing array in Data/BSS segments by declaring array as static int sieve[SIZE_MACRO]

answered Mar 6, 2012 at 18:13

Agnius Vasiliauskas

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1 Comment

Brian McFarland Over a year ago

+1 for the comment about static. Just be aware that it means your code is no longer reentrant and the initializer will only be invoked once--neither of which is usually an issue for a function called main().

Dunes · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-06 17:36:39Z

1

All the memory in that program is allocated on the stack. When you increase the size of the array you increase the amount of space required on the stack. Eventually the method cannot be called as there isn't enough space on the stack to accomodate it.

Either experiement with mallocing the array (so it's allocated on the heap). Or learn how to tell the compiler to allocate a larger stack.

answered Mar 6, 2012 at 17:36

Dunes

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