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Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure

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glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> writes:
> Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> wrote:
[...]
>> Implementations of strlen are not required to detect any of these
>> errors; they all have undefined behavior.  (It would be easy to
>> detect a null pointer argument, but the overhead might be an issue,
>> and on most systems it's likely to cause a run-time fault anyway
>> -- and it's not clear what it should return for a null pointer
>> argument anyway.)
>
> I suppose 0 and -1 are not so unreasonable choices. 

Defining strlen to return 0 would encourage treating both "" and
NULL as empty strings.  If you wanted to *consistently* change the
language and library so that a null pointer always acts like an
empty string, I suppose you could, but I think it would be overly
complicated and would, on many systems, impose run-time overhead
without much benefit.

-1 would convert to SIZE_MAX, which would lead to bugs where a
program would treat a null pointer as if it pointed to a very very
long string.

In the absence of exception handling, I prefer leaving strlen(NULL)
undefined, which allows implementations to trap it, which at least
potentially can catch bugs earlier.

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst-u@mib.org  <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
Working, but not speaking, for JetHead Development, Inc.
"We must do something.  This is something.  Therefore, we must do this."
    -- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"

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array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure jay <arnuld.mizong@gmail.com> - 2014-04-01 23:31 -0700
  Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure Xavier Roche <xroche@free.fr.NOSPAM.invalid> - 2014-04-02 08:47 +0200
  Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2014-04-02 07:36 +0000
  Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2014-04-02 10:10 +0100
    Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2014-04-02 08:11 -0700
      Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2014-04-02 19:03 +0000
        Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2014-04-02 15:48 -0400
          Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2014-04-02 14:42 -0700
            Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2014-04-02 15:14 -0700
        Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2014-04-02 14:55 -0700
          Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2014-04-02 23:42 +0000
  Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2014-04-02 02:34 -0700
  Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2014-04-02 07:40 -0400
    Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure Thomas Jahns <jahns@idontlikespam.dkrz.de> - 2014-04-02 13:52 +0200
    Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2014-04-02 08:21 -0700
      Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2014-04-02 11:30 -0400
      Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2014-04-02 19:26 +0000
        Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2014-04-02 20:39 +0100
        Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2014-04-02 14:39 -0600
        Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2014-04-02 15:03 -0700
          Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2014-04-03 01:11 -0700
            Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure Ike Naar <ike@iceland.freeshell.org> - 2014-04-03 14:27 +0000
              Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2014-04-03 17:56 -0400
            Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2014-04-03 08:18 -0700
              Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2014-04-03 15:30 +0000
      Re: array-size/malloc limit and strlen() failure Stephen Sprunk <stephen@sprunk.org> - 2014-04-03 00:33 -0500

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