Stack pointers can live just as long (for example, define some objects in main(), and they will exist for the duration of the program; hand out pointers like candy). An allocated object can be deallocated whenever.
Dereferencing said pointers isn't any different, no matter how the pointee was allocated:
void myfun(void *foo) {
// do things with foo.
// how it was allocated is all the same to me
}
As far as C is concerned, stack and heap do not exist. The validity of reference to an object is defined in terms of lifetime, which stems from its storage duration (static/automatic/allocated).
And these are concepts that just define the semantics of the language. For example, an object with automatic storage duration might never hit stack or heap or any other part of RAM; it could live in registers, or be optimized out altogether. It could be in the bss segment. The semantics also do not forbid the implementation from using mmap() or malloc() (or similar) for objects with automatic storage duration.
Using stack for automatic variables and heap for allocated variables is just one implementation technique, which should not give rise to any observable differences in the meaning of a legal program (i.e. one that doesn't go into undefined behavior) as interpreted by the abstract machine, which the standard defines.
Dereferencing said pointers isn't any different, no matter how the pointee was allocated:
As far as C is concerned, stack and heap do not exist. The validity of reference to an object is defined in terms of lifetime, which stems from its storage duration (static/automatic/allocated).And these are concepts that just define the semantics of the language. For example, an object with automatic storage duration might never hit stack or heap or any other part of RAM; it could live in registers, or be optimized out altogether. It could be in the bss segment. The semantics also do not forbid the implementation from using mmap() or malloc() (or similar) for objects with automatic storage duration.
Using stack for automatic variables and heap for allocated variables is just one implementation technique, which should not give rise to any observable differences in the meaning of a legal program (i.e. one that doesn't go into undefined behavior) as interpreted by the abstract machine, which the standard defines.