Xref: utzoo comp.lang.c++:6952 comp.std.c:2664
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!kunivv1!atcmpe!jc
From: jc@atcmp.nl (Jan Christiaan van Winkel)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,comp.std.c
Subject: Re: references to dereferenced null pointers
Message-ID: <571@atcmpe.atcmp.nl>
Date: 23 Mar 90 13:07:45 GMT
References: <1990Mar23.072132.7307@athena.mit.edu>
Organization: AT Computing, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Lines: 16

From article <1990Mar23.072132.7307@athena.mit.edu>, by raeburn@athena.mit.edu (Ken Raeburn):
> a integral type that has more bits than a pointer uses.  Say the machine
> uses 24 bits for addressing, and a "long int" provides 32.  Could not
> "(void *) 0xc0000000" be used for NULL?  The compiler would have to
> 
> It would probably be a strange architecture that would do things this way,
> but I expect there are some strange architectures out there, each with its
> own reasons.

I believe the Apple Macintosh used to use the upper 8 bits of a pointer
to store information like relocatable or something. Now they've made
their system "32-bit clean" and pointers are the full 32 bits.
Note that I do not want to imply that the Mac has a strange architecture,
nor that it doesn't... :-)

JC.