Editing Stack machine (section)

{{Short description|Type of computer}}
{{Original research|section|date=February 2016}}
{{For|stack machines in automata theory|Pushdown automaton}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2025|cs1-dates=y}}
{{Use list-defined references|date=July 2022}}
In [[computer science]], [[computer engineering]] and [[programming language implementation]]s, a '''stack machine''' is a [[computer processor]] or a [[Virtual machine#Process virtual machines|process virtual machine]] in which the primary interaction is moving short-lived temporary values to and from a push down [[Stack (abstract data type)|stack]]. In the case of a hardware processor, a [[hardware stack]] is used. The use of a stack significantly reduces the required number of [[processor register]]s. Stack machines extend [[push-down automata]] with additional load/store operations or multiple stacks and hence are [[Turing-complete]].