Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!xanth!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!agarn!throopw
From: throopw@agarn.dg.com (Wayne A. Throop)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: An interesting behaviour in printf
Message-ID: <4273@xyzzy.UUCP>
Date: 20 Mar 89 19:07:56 GMT
References: <960@Portia.Stanford.EDU> <15938@cup.portal.com> <2343@buengc.BU.EDU> <9874@smoke.BRL.MIL>
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> gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn )
> In my version (BRL UNIX System V emulation for 4BSD), I
> decided that the test for a null pointer was cheap insurance and I also
> have *printf("%s",(char*)0) print "(null)" rather than behave randomly.
> Such matters concern what X3J11 dubbed "quality of implementation" issues.

Uh... yeah.  They involve some taste issues also, so let me add a
tangential point.  I'd personally prefer not to overload an "in-band"
behavior to mean that something "out-of-band" happened.  The check for
the null pointer is cheap enough, I agree, but I'd druther not simply
print a string in that case... it's practically a liscense to write
non-portable code.  I'd druther do something close to

    kill( getpid(), SIGSEGV );

in such a case.
--
"Who would be fighting with the weather like this?"
        "Only a lunatic."
                "So you think D'Artagnian is involved?"
                        --- Porthos, Athos, and Aramis.
--
Wayne Throop      <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!throopw