Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!srhqla!tcm
From: tcm@srhqla.SR.COM (Tim Meighan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: STACK OVERFLOW, SYSTEM HALTED
Message-ID: <1251@srhqla.SR.COM>
Date: 24 Jan 90 21:09:20 GMT
Reply-To: tcm@srhqla.SR.COM (Tim Meighan)
Organization: Silent Radio, Los Angeles
Lines: 26

In article <672@tnosoes.UUCP> joep@tnosoes.UUCP (Joep Mathijssen) writes:

>Can somebody help me with this error: 'STACK OVERFLOW, SYSTEM HALTED'.
> - Is it related to a certain dos-version.
> - Can I write a program that ignores this problem.

This is usually caused by a buggy program, or one that has not allocated 
enough stack space.  It means that some process running in the computer
keeps pushing (saving) information on the stack without ever pulling it
off again -- sometimes a sign of a subroutine accidently calling itself
over and over or some other infinite looping problem.  What happens is that
the stack finally fills up (it's only been allocated a certain amount
of memory) and it has no way of saving any more info.

Since you didn't mention the circumstances that cause the stack to overflow,
it's hard to guess what is wrong here.  However, it is not possible to
ignore a stack overflow on a PC.  Since the stack is usually used for very
important stuff -- like pointers to where a subroutine is supposed to return
to when it's done -- a stack overflow on a PC is catastrophic, and crashes
the computer -- hence the SYSTEM HALTED message.

If you can figure out exactly what circumstances cause this to happen, you
will be that much closer to correcting the problem.

Tim Meighan
Silent Radio