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Interaction mechanisms with global variables are called global environment (see also global state) mechanisms. The global environment paradigm is contrasted with the local environment paradigm, where all variables are local with no shared memory (and therefore all interactions can be reconducted to message passing ).
Local variables may have a lexical or dynamic scope, though lexical (static) scoping is far more common.In lexical scoping (or lexical scope; also called static scoping or static scope), if a variable name's scope is a certain block, then its scope is the program text of the block definition: within that block's text, the variable name exists, and is bound to the variable's value, but outside ...
Non-local variables are the primary reason it is difficult to support nested, anonymous, higher-order and thereby first-class functions in a programming language. If the nested function or functions are (mutually) recursive, it becomes hard for the compiler to know exactly where on the call stack the non-local variable was allocated, as the frame pointer only points to the local variable of ...
int threadLocal; // This is a thread-local variable. shared int global; // This is a global variable shared with all threads. The shared keyword works both as the storage class, and as a type qualifier – shared variables are subject to some restrictions which statically enforce data integrity. [ 13 ]
A variable can be either of global or local scope. A global variable is a variable declared in the main body of the source code, outside all functions, while a local variable is one declared within the body of a function or a block. Modern versions allow nested lexical scope.
This shows the typical layout of a simple computer's program memory with the text, various data, and stack and heap sections. The data segment contains initialized static variables, i.e. global variables and local static variables which have a defined value and can be modified.
Alternatively, a variable with dynamic scope is resolved at run-time, based on a global binding stack that depends on the specific control flow. Variables only accessible within a certain functions are termed "local variables". A "global variable", or one with indefinite scope, may be referred to anywhere in the program.
The term local variable is usually synonymous with automatic variable, since these are the same thing in many programming languages, but local is more general – most local variables are automatic local variables, but static local variables also exist, notably in C. For a static local variable, the allocation is static (the lifetime is the ...