Question

Given a program of :

int main()
{

    short myVariableName1;  // stores from -32768 to +32767
    short int myVariableName2;  // stores from -32768 to +32767
    signed short myVariableName3;  // stores from -32768 to +32767
    signed short int myVariableName4;  // stores from -32768 to +32767
    unsigned short myVariableName5;  // stores from 0 to +65535
    unsigned short int myVariableName6;  // stores from 0 to +65535

    int myVariableName7;  // stores from -32768 to +32767
    signed int myVariableName8;  // stores from -32768 to +32767
    unsigned int myVariableName9;  // stores from 0 to +65535

    long     myVariableName10;  // stores from -2147483648 to [phone]
    long     int myVariableName11;  // stores from -2147483648 to [phone]
    signed   long myVariableName12;  // stores from -2147483648 to [phone]
    signed   long int myVariableName13;  // stores from -2147483648 to [phone]
    unsigned long myVariableName14;  // stores from 0 to [phone]
    unsigned long int myVariableName15;  // stores from 0 to [phone]
    cout << "Hello World!" << endl;
    cout << myVariableName1 << endl;
    cout << myVariableName2 << endl;
    cout << myVariableName3 << endl;
    cout << myVariableName4 << endl;
    cout << myVariableName5 << endl;
    cout << myVariableName6 << endl;
    cout << myVariableName7 << endl;
    cout << myVariableName8 << endl;
    cout << myVariableName9 << endl;
    cout << myVariableName10 << endl;
    cout << myVariableName11 << endl;
    cout << myVariableName12 << endl;
    cout << myVariableName13 << endl;
    cout << myVariableName14 << endl;
    cout << myVariableName15 << endl;
    cin.get();

    return 0;
}

Printing out the unassigned variables will print whatever was stored in that memory location previously. What I’ve noticed is that across multiple consecutive executions the printed values are not changing – which tells me that the locations in memory are the same each time they execute.

I’m just curious as to how this is determined, why this is so.

Answer 1

Those variables live on the stack. The execution of your program looks to be deterministic, so every time you run it the same things happen. It’s not choosing the same address necessarily (many runtimes these days make use of Address Space Randomization techniques to ensure that the stack addresses are not the same between runs), but the relative addresses on the stack contain the same data every time.