C and C++ could have non_nullable pointers, easily

C and C++ could have non_nullable pointers, easily

Posted Aug 21, 2009 7:54 UTC (Fri) by farnz (guest, #17727)
In reply to: C and C++ could have non_nullable pointers, easily by nix
Parent article: Null pointers, one month later

It's also impossible to verify the C type system; this doesn't stop compilers from running. The trick is to go for a conservative assessment; you're not interested in the choices "will sometimes be null/will never be null", you're interested in "might or might not be null/will never be null". The second is tractable; imagine an "ifnull( <ptrexpression> ) { null-block } else { <ptrexpression is now nonnull> nonnull-block }". By requiring you to use ifnull to convert nullable pointers to nonnull pointers whenever you might encounter them, the compiler can force you to decide how you're going to handle unexpected nulls.

Whenever the compiler isn't sure that a pointer is nonnull, it gives a compile-time error message. So, examples:

int func1( int *pointer )
{
    return *pointer; // Compile error here - cannot deference a nullable
}

int func2( int * nonnull pointer )
{
    return *pointer; // OK
}

int func3( int * pointer )
{
    return func2( pointer ); // Compile error here - even if pointer is
actually non-null.
}

int func4( int * pointer )
{
    ifnull( pointer )
        return 0;
    else
        return func3( pointer ); // OK, but func3 still won't compile, as
other callers might use a null pointer.
}

int func5( int * pointer )
{
    ifnull( pointer )
        return 0;
    else
        return func2( pointer ); // OK
}

This forces you to handle nulls sanely at some point, or fail to compile and link properly. Practical code handles nullness at boundary points, and then passes nonnull pointers around the place, to code which can assume that they're not null.

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