How far can stack [LIFO] solve do automatic garbage collection and prevent memory leak ?

[Standish P]

> Garbage collection doesn't use a stack. It uses a "heap", which is in
> the abstract a collection of memory blocks of different lengths,
> divided into two lists, generally represented as linked lists:
>
> 1.  A list of blocks that are free and may be used to store new data
>
> 2.  A list of blocks that are in use, or haven't been freed (yet)

Is this all that a heap is or is there more to it ? I have been
looking for simple but complete explanation of heap for a while and
not gotten to it. I think I am looking for a stack allocation on the
same pattern. In a disk, a file is fragmented in many contiguous
blocks and is accessed automatically.

> There is no way you could do memory management of all but the most
> trivial and fixed-length data chunks using a stack. Sure, you could
> reserve thousands of bytes on the stack for an array but suppose your
> language allows arrays to grow or shrink. To keep its property of
> being adjacent, you'd have to do something horrible such as move
> unrelated data allocated later, which raises all sorts of security
> issues, doesn't it.


> A stack, or something which works like a stack (that is, a stack) is a
> necessary but not sufficient condition for a working C runtime because
> C functions can call themselves recursively, whether directly or
> indirectly. If this last condition did not obtain, each function could
> give the functions it calls some of its own memory and the called
> function could save a fixed set of non-stacked general registers in
> that area; this was in fact the practice on IBM 370 and in assembler
> language at a time when many "data processing managers" though
> recursion was a Communist plot.
>
> However, data structures of variable size, or data structures that
> merely take up a lot of space, don't play nice with others on the
> stack, so, we place their address on the stack and store them in
> another place, which was named the heap, probably, as a sort of
> witticism.
>
> Gilbert and Sullivan:
>
> If anyone anything lacks
> He'll find it all ready in stacks

This you might want to take this to the Forth people because they are
marketing their language as a cure for all that plagues programming
today.

> was wrong, and needs to be brought up to date:
>
> You cannot do everything in a stack
> Unless you code an almighty hack
> If you're a coding Knight who says, "Neep",
> You'll probably need to implement a heap
> A pile a heap of benefits you'll reap
> If only my advice in your brain you'll keep
> And avoid memory leaks from which data doth seep
> By using a well-implemented, well structured, and well-documented
> Heap!
>
> [Chorus of Sailors]
> We will to heart your advice take, and always use a heap!
>
> [Soloist]
> Oh thank you do
> To this be true
> And always my sage advice do keep
> That you always need to use a heap!- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -