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From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Passing (char *) NULL to printf to match %s
Message-ID: <8416@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 15-Aug-87 18:22:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.8416
Posted: Sat Aug 15 18:22:46 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Aug-87 18:22:46 EDT
References: <166@qetzal.UUCP> <157@hobbes.UUCP> <875@bsu-cs.UUCP> <24247@sun.uucp>, <10254@orchid.waterloo.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 15

> ...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 depends on what you are after.  For debugging work in particular, printing
"(null)" is a significant convenience.  As for detecting bugs early... don't
you *look* at the printed output?!?

I have no strong feelings either way on the issue, actually -- the debugging
issue can be handled with '#define NONNULL(s) ((s != NULL) ? s : "(null)")'
and a bit of care -- but the justification offered strikes me as bogus.
-- 
Support sustained spaceflight: fight |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the soi-disant "Planetary Society"!  | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry