Re: Style question: Should one check for NULL pointers?

H. Peter Anvin
2003-07-10T22:01:46Z

Followup to: <3F0DD21B.5010408@inet.com>
By author: Eli Carter <eli.carter@inet.com>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> Alan Stern wrote:
> [snip]
> > Ultimately this comes down to a question of style and taste. This
> > particular issue is not addressed in Documentation/CodingStyle so I'm
> > raising it here. My personal preference is for code that means what it
> > says; if a pointer is checked it should be because there is a genuine
> > possibility that the pointer _is_ NULL. I see no reason for pure
> > paranoia, particularly if it's not commented as such.
> >
> > Comments, anyone?
>
> BUG_ON() perhaps?
>

BUG_ON() is largely redundant if you would have a null pointer
reference anyway.

-hpa
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