This routine obtains the value of the stack address attribute of the thread attributes object specified in the attr argument and stores it in the location specified by the stackaddr argument. The specified attributes object must already be initialized when this routine is called. The stack address attribute of a thread attributes object points to the origin of the stack for a new thread. Unlike pthread_attr_getstackaddr(), this routine is a much more reliable portable interface. With the POSIX standard pthread_ attr_getstackaddr(), a stack is specified using a single, undefined, address. An implementation of the standard can only assume that the specified value represents the value to which the thread's stack pointer should be set when beginning execution. However, this requires the application to know how the machine uses the stack. For example, a stack may "grow" either up (to higher addresses) or down (to lower addresses), and may be decreased (or increased) either before or after storing a new value. The Threads Library provides an alternative interface with pthread_attr_getstackaddr_np(). Instead of returning a stack address, it returns the base (lowest) address and the size.