How to change the stack size using ulimit or per process on Mac OS X for a C or Ruby program?

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Apparently there is a hard limit on the stack size for mac os x, taken from http://lists.apple.com/archives/scitech/2004/Oct/msg00124.html granted this is quite old, and Im not sure if its still true anymore, but to set it simply call ulimit -s hard, its 65532. or about 65 megs.

I did some tests on snow leopard, 10.6.8, and it does seem to be true. 

$ ulimit -a
...
stack size              (kbytes, -s) 8192
...
$ ulimit -s 65533
-bash: ulimit: stack size: cannot modify limit: Operation not permitted
$ ulimit -s 65532
$

I also found this http://linuxtoosx.blogspot.com/2010/10/stack-overflow-increasing-stack-limit.html though I haven’t test it, so can’t really say much about it.

When applications consume gigs of memory thats usually taken from the heap, the stack is usually reserve for local automatic variables that exist for a relatively small amount of time equivalent to the lifespan of the function call, the heap is where most of the persistent data lives.

here is a quick tutorial:

#include <stdlib.h>

#define NUMBER_OF_BYTES 10000000 // about 10 megs
void test()
{
   char stack_data[NUMBER_OF_BYTES];          // allocating on the stack.
   char *heap_data = malloc(NUMBER_OF_BYTES); // pointer (heap_data) lives on the stack, the actual data lives on the heap.
}

int main()
{   
    test(); 
    // at this point stack_data[NUMBER_OF_BYTES] and *heap_data have being removed, but malloc(NUMBER_OF_BYTES) persists.
    // depending on the calling convention either main or test are responssible for resetting the stack.
    // on most compilers including gcc, the caller (main) is responssible.

    return 0;
}

$ ulimit -a
...
stack size              (kbytes, -s) 8192
...
$ gcc m.c
$ ./a.out
Segmentation fault
$ ulimit -s hard
$ ./a.out
$

ulimit is only temporary you would have to update it every time, or update your corresponding bash script to set it automatically.

Once ulimit is set it can only be lowered never raised.

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