Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!rochester!ur-tut!sunybcs!boulder!hao!ames!umd5!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Possible extension to C??
Message-ID: <7010@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: 9 Jan 88 09:37:58 GMT
References: <3306@ihlpf.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 13

In article <3306@ihlpf.ATT.COM> nevin1@ihlpf.UUCP (00704A-Liber,N.) writes:
>I feel that *0 should be equal to 0 (at least for the data types char, short,
>int, long and 'pointer').

I think this is totally unworkable.  0 is an int, not a pointer,
so you cannot meanigfully dereference it.  Even a (void *)0 null
pointer cannot meaningfully be said to point to something when
dereferenced.  And what sized 0 would you have the result be?

We've just about gotton all the old VAX BSD null pointer
dereferencing (which, usually inadvertently, capitalized on an
accidental characteristic of the particular implementation)
stamped out.  Let's not backslide now.