DeVault: Announcing the Hare programming language

The default is -fdelete-null-pointer-checks, which has the description: "Assume that programs cannot safely dereference null pointers, and that no code or data element resides at address zero."[0] The -fno-delete-null-pointer-checks flag affects *both* of these assumptions, meaning that the compiler cannot assume "that no code or data element resides at address zero" (i.e. that no pointer to an object has the same representation as a null pointer).

As stated in the documentation the intended use of the -fno-delete-null-pointer-checks flag is platforms such as AVR where objects *can* be placed at address zero, which implies that &variable can be indistinguishable from a null pointer. Though this is more likely to be true for a global or static object than for a stack variable.

[0] https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Optimize-Options.html#...