Revision as of 23:22, 6 August 2025 edit Guy Harris (talk \| contribs) Extended confirmed users 80,059 edits Update to mention various other names. A leaf routine is a routine that happens not to call another routine; a non-leaf routine can become a leaf routine, and vice versa, with code changes. ← Previous edit		Latest revision as of 23:23, 6 August 2025 edit undo Guy Harris (talk \| contribs) Extended confirmed users 80,059 edits Restrictive clause, so use "that".
Line 1: {{short description\|Subroutines in computer science}} A '''leaf routine''', '''leaf subroutine''', '''leaf function''', or '''leaf procedure''' is a [[function (computer programming)\|function]] ~~which~~that does not in turn call another function. Some compilers can apply special program optimizations to leaf routines to make them more efficient, such as the use of [[link register]]s to avoid having to push the return address on the stack, or not allocating a [[register window]] on CPU architectures descended from [[Berkeley RISC]].<ref>{{cite web\|url=https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gccint/Leaf-Functions.html\|title=Leaf Functions (GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) Internals Manual)}}</ref> The term "leaf" refers to their position as [[leaf node]]s in the [[call graph]] of the program.

Leaf routine: Difference between revisions