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prologue

The instructions at the start of a function that set up its stack frame.

A function prologue saves the frame pointer and return address as needed, establishes the new frame pointer, saves registers it must preserve and reserves stack space (push rbp; mov rbp, rsp; sub rsp, N or stp x29, x30, [sp, #-N]!; mov x29, sp).

Examples

  • push rbp; mov rbp, rsp; sub rsp, 16 is a typical x86-64 prologue.

See also

epilogue frame pointer stack frame store pair
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