Messages in this thread | | | Date | Fri, 11 Jul 2003 09:13:03 -0500 | From | "David D. Hagood" <> | Subject | Re: Style question: Should one check for NULL pointers? |
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Hua Zhong wrote:
> Not always true. In some cases you know how to handle: just return > without doing anyting.
That is NOT an error condition - the API specifically allows NULL to be passed in, and specifically states that no action will be taken in that case.
But consider the following code:
sscanf(0,0);
That IS an error condition - both the string to scan and the format string are NULL. In this case sscanf should return EITHER 0 (no items matched) or better still -1 (error).
As others have said - ideally, if you have any doubt about a new function you are writing being able to succeed, you should write it to return a success report.
However, my whole point was that simply checking for null and doing nothing when null was not a valid value was violating the rule of "don't check if you don't know how to handle".
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