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From: chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: NULL pointers as arguments
Message-ID: <6494@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 29-Apr-87 13:00:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: mimsy.6494
Posted: Wed Apr 29 13:00:13 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 2-May-87 02:45:56 EDT
References: <1130@ius2.cs.cmu.edu>
Distribution: na
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 17

In article <1130@ius2.cs.cmu.edu> edw@ius2.cs.cmu.edu (Eddie Wyatt) writes:
<   It seems to me that the problems of having foo(NULL) be correct on
<whatever machine you are working on could be taken care of by 
<having pointer arguements aways be type coerced into whatever the
<largest pointer type is on the machine (in cases presented to
<me that is char *).  This could be done as part of the language
<definition just as the float parameter are typed coerced into
<doubles.  This assumes there is some bound on pointer type sizes
<though.  Any comments?

That would work fine.  I understand that the DG MV series compiler
has a magic option that in essence does this.  I imagine it is an
option for the same reason that many people dislike the automatiac
float-to-double promotion. . . .
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7690)
UUCP:	seismo!mimsy!chris	ARPA/CSNet:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu