Path: utzoo!telly!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!YAHI.STANFORD.EDU!tiemann
From: tiemann@YAHI.STANFORD.EDU (Michael Tiemann)
Newsgroups: gnu.g++
Subject: Reference Semantics
Message-ID: <8905161424.AA27311@yahi.stanford.edu>
Date: 16 May 89 14:24:53 GMT
References: <323@odi.ODI.COM>
Sender: daemon@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
Reply-To: tiemann@lurch.stanford.edu
Distribution: gnu
Organization: GNUs Not Usenet
Lines: 12

While it often makes sense to talk about null pointers, since pointers
are forever walking down lists, it almost never makes sense to talk
about null references, since references never go anywhere.  As has
been pointed out here before, the "right" way to do null references is
to define a null object:

	Foo& r = TheNullFooObject;

Now you know whether `r' is the null reference or not.  Note that this
is like some Pascal systems, where NIL is not 0.

Michael