Calling Convention

Calling conventions in programming define how functions receive parameters from the caller and how they return values. Programming languages and architectures may use different calling conventions.

They define:

• Which registers are used to pass arguments.
• How the stack is used for additional arguments.
• How the return value is passed back to the caller.
• Who is responsible for cleaning up the stack (caller or callee).

Common calling conventions include:

• cdecl: Used in C where the caller cleans the stack
• stdcall: Used in Windows API calls, where the callee cleans the stack
• fastcall: Passes some arguments in registers for efficiency
• x86-64 System V ABI: Defines calling conventions for x86-64 architecture, including how parameters are passed in registers and on the stack.