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From: atbowler@orchid.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Passing (char *) NULL to printf to match %s
Message-ID: <10254@orchid.waterloo.edu>
Date: Fri, 14-Aug-87 16:10:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: orchid.10254
Posted: Fri Aug 14 16:10:41 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Aug-87 16:43:46 EDT
References: <166@qetzal.UUCP> <157@hobbes.UUCP> <875@bsu-cs.UUCP> <24247@sun.uucp>
Reply-To: atbowler@orchid.waterloo.edu (Alan T. Bowler [SDG])
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 10

In article <24247@sun.uucp> guy%gorodish@Sun.COM (Guy Harris) writes:
>Unless the ANSI C spec changes before it becomes official, it will
>STILL be a bad idea to pass NULL to "printf".

I certainly hope that the standard does not ever do that.  Sun's approach
of faulting gets bugs in programs detected much earlier in the
development cycle.  Printing "(null)" is roughly equivalent
to quietly mapping an out of bound subscript to zero.  It "cures"
the problem of programs faulting, instead they just quietly
screw up.