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Asked: 2026-06-04T00:36:15+00:00

I’m learning masm32, following some tutorials. In one tutorial: http://win32assembly.online.fr/tut3.html there is stated: LOCAL

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I’m learning masm32, following some tutorials.
In one tutorial: http://win32assembly.online.fr/tut3.html
there is stated:

LOCAL directive allocates memory from the stack for local variables
used in the function. The bunch of LOCAL directives must be
immediately below the PROC directive. The LOCAL directive is
immediately followed by :.
So LOCAL wc:WNDCLASSEX tells MASM to allocate memory from the stack
the size of WNDCLASSEX structure for the variable named wc. We can
refer to wc in our codes without any difficulty involved in stack
manipulation. That’s really a godsend, I think. The downside is that
local variables cannot be used outside the function they’re created
and will be automatically destroyed when the function returns to the
caller. Another drawback is that you cannot initialize local variables
automatically because they’re just stack memory allocated dynamically
when the function is entered . You have to manually assign them with
desired values after LOCAL directives.

I’ve always been told stack memory is static, and any dynamic allocation is heap.
Can we really consider those as locals in the sense of C++ then?
When you create local variables in C++, will those variables be dynamically allocated on the stack as well?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Can we really consider those as locals in the sense of C++ then? When you create local variables in C++, will those variables be dynamically allocated on the stack as well?

    In C++, local (automatic) variables live on the stack, so yes and yes.

    They are allocated dynamically in the sense that they come and go as the function is entered/exited. However, as you rightly point out, this type of allocation is rather different from heap allocation.

    In addition to the heap and the stack, there is a third area where variables can reside. It is the data segment. It’s where global as well as function- and class-level static variables live.

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