Re: [PATCH v3] NULL.3const: Add documentation for NULL

[Alejandro Colomar]

Hi Doug,

On 7/27/22 15:23, Douglas McIlroy wrote:
> Incidentally, I personally don't use NULL. Why, when C provides a
> crisp notation, 0, should one want to haul in an extra include file to
> activate a shouty version of it?

Because I don't know what foo(a, b, 0, 0) is, and I don't know from 
memory the position of all parameters to the functions I use (and 
checking them every time would be cumbersome, although I normally do, 
just because it's easier to just check, but I don't feel forced to do it 
so it's nicer).

Was the third parameter to foo() the pointer and the fourth a length, or 
was it the other way around?  bcopy(3) vs memcpy(3) come to mind, 
although of course no-one would memcpy(dest, NULL, 0) with hardcoded 0s 
in their Right Mind (tm) (although another story is to call memcpy(dest, 
src, len) with src and len both 0).

Knowing with 100% certainty that something is a pointer or an integer 
just by reading the code and not having to go to the definition 
somewhere far from it, improves readability.

Even with a program[1] that finds the definitions in a big tree of code, 
it would be nice if one wouldn't need to do it so often.  Kind of the 
argument that some use to object to my separation of man3type pages, but 
for C code.

[1]: grepc(1) <http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/src/alx/alx/grepc.git/>

Cheers,

Alex

--
Alejandro Colomar
<http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

OpenPGP_signature
Description: OpenPGP digital signature