Stack frames

The call stack is divided up into contiguous pieces called stack frames, or frames for short; each frame is the data associated with one call to one function. The frame contains the arguments given to the function, the function's local variables, and the address at which the function is executing.

When your program is started, the stack has only one frame, that of the function main(). This is called the initial frame or the outermost frame. Each time a function is called, a new frame is made. Each time a function returns, the frame for that function invocation is eliminated. If a function is recursive, there can be many frames for the same function. The frame for the function in which execution is actually occurring is called the innermost frame. This is the most recently created of all the stack frames that still exist.

Inside your program, stack frames are identified by their addresses. A stack frame consists of many bytes, each of which has its own address; each kind of computer has a convention for choosing one byte whose address serves as the address of the frame. Usually this address is kept in a register called the frame pointer register while execution is going on in that frame.

GDB assigns numbers to all existing stack frames, starting with 0 for the innermost frame, 1 for the frame that called it, and so on upward. These numbers don't really exist in your program; they're assigned by GDB to give you a way of designating stack frames in GDB commands.

Some compilers provide a way to compile functions so that they operate without stack frames. (For example, the gcc option -fomit-frame-pointer generates functions without a frame.) This is occasionally done with heavily used library functions to reduce the time required to set up the frame. GDB has limited facilities for dealing with these function invocations. If the innermost function invocation has no stack frame, GDB nevertheless regards it as though it had a separate frame, which is numbered 0 as usual, allowing correct tracing of the function call chain. However, GDB has no provision for frameless functions elsewhere in the stack.

frame args
The frame command lets you move from one stack frame to another, and to print the stack frame you select. The args may be either the address of the frame or the stack frame number. Without an argument, frame prints the current stack frame.
select-frame
The select-frame command lets you move from one stack frame to another without printing the frame. This is the silent version of frame.