Why is stack bounded?

On any platform I've worked with, stack size was always bounded. You had to specify maximum stack size at some point (before the program starts), and it was preallocated. Why cannot the stack be a linked list residing in heap memory? Then it would be virtually unlimited. Is it some inherent property of all today's computer architectures?

My question is not related to any specific programming language, or platform. It's pure academic curiosity.

(By 'stack' I mean the memory where threads store execution traces and arguments, if there is any ambiguity.)

Solution

Continuously-stored stacks need to have a known max size so multiple of them could be created directly in memory, such stacks are faster to process and easier to implement than ones which are implemented as linked lists . But on Windows and Linux, process/thread stacks are using virtual memory address spaces, so the only general purposes of limiting them are in terms of programming languages or compilers:

as a breakpoint feature -- to avoid: excessive or accidental recursion of functions, and excessive copying of large values .
for compatibility .

In usually used hardware architectures, there is no representation of Stack . It may be possible to use Stack to force that certain data, on certain systems would go into lower-level, or any, CPU Cache , but, well.., its questionable .

For more words:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_machine#Computers_using_call_stacks_and_stack_frames
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_stack

Linux and Windows

On Linux, process can use own virtual address space, so at least 1 of it's Stacks can have no size limit
(so would be limited only by: amount of possible addresses, and stored data)

But additional threads of process, need to have a known max Stack sizes, i assume that addresses for their Stacks are reserved starting from the opposite side of address space, than addresses for the Stack of main thread are .

#include <sys/resource.h>

rlimit *limit = {
    .rlim_cur = RLIM_INFINITY,      // user-settable limit
    .rlim_max = RLIM_INFINITY       // system/admin limit
};
int getrlimit(RLIMIT_STACK, limit);
*limit.rlim_cur = RLIM_INFINITY;
int setrlimit(RLIMIT_STACK, limit);     // set limit for current process

On Windows there is no option for unlimited Stack space . Maybe because it's processes are using the same virtual address space, for compatibility or performance . Or maybe for enforced safety .