Unused Static Stack Varibles

Hey /prog/,

In C, are variables located in the stack recycled/freed when they are no longer needed? I suppose that this depends on the compiler, but does anyone know if GCC does this?

To be a little clearer, let's say I have these two translation units...

main.c/.h
settings.c/.h

main() calls the function get_settings() (located in settings.c) which will fill the variables (located in main.c) with data read from a file and then returns.

Since there is no longer any purpose for the staic variables declared in settings.c, are they freed once get_settings() returns?

I don't know if the right answer is here or not, I got too fed up reading bullshit to care?: there are no static variables on the stack. All static variables are on the heap and are memory resident for the life of the program. Some compilers may support hints to free the data, but it isn't standard C.