Stack Calling Convention

A Function calling convention that involves pushing and popping arguments onto the OS Stack

Function Call Process

Caller calls callee

1. Caller pushes $ra
2. Caller pushes arguments
3. Callee pops arguments from the stack
4. Callee performs function using temporary variables $t0,...,$t9
5. Callee pops $ra from the stack
6. Callee pushes return value onto the stack
7. Callee jumps to the return address $ra
8. Caller pops return value from stack
9. Caller continues its original logic

MIPS

Using a OS Stack, you can push and pop.

Push

# push $t0 onto the stack
addi $sp, $sp, -4
sw $t0, 0($sp)

Pop

# pop from the stack
lw $t0, 0($sp)
addi $sp, $sp, 4