Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!ucsd!ucsdhub!esosun!seismo!uunet!ficc!peter
From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: NULL pointers (was: Software Distribution)
Keywords: software distribution, null pointers
Message-ID: <1690@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 3 Oct 88 14:56:48 GMT
References: <978@esunix.UUCP> <3112@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <1988Sep29.141726.14882@ateng.ateng.com>
Organization: SCADA
Lines: 15

In article <1988Sep29.141726.14882@ateng.ateng.com>, chip@ateng.ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes:
> According to bsy@PLAY.MACH.CS.CMU.EDU (Bennet Yee):
> >Of course, if your machine core dumps on dereferencing NULL, just trap the
> >fault (SIGSEGV), check the instruction that caused the trap, and patch up
> >and return if it was due to dereferencing NULL; otherwise dump core.

No no, no. If the program traps on dereferencing NULL you pack it up and send
it back to the vendor. This is a *bug*. Even if it's safe on some machines
it's still a bug.

And for the other case, I can't imagine anyone actually writing code that
depended on *NULL being illegal...
-- 
Peter da Silva  `-_-'  Ferranti International Controls Corporation.
"Have you hugged  U  your wolf today?"            peter@ficc.uu.net