Aztec C (was: more eBay stuff)

[Steven Hirsch]

On Thu, 31 May 2007, Ethan Dicks wrote:

> On 5/31/07, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
>> The major advantage of Aztec (Manx) C was to be able to run essentially
>> the same compiler on multiple microcomputer platforms.  That was
>> especially useful, since before "ANSI C", there were lots of "minor"
>> variations from one K&R C to another....  I AM NOT asking what
>> "should be", I'm talking about comparing what compiler authors thought.
>
> One that varies from platform to platform:
>
> What does "char *p = NULL; return(strlen(p));" do?
>
> On some machines, it returns 0.  On others, it segfaults because you
> asked it to dereference a null pointer.  Both are "correct" behavior
> because the official behavior is "undefined".
>
> Ran into that one when someone tried to port some code from an NCR box
> to a Sun box (yes, 10 years ago ;-)  It worked "fine" on the NCR box,
> but when it "broke" on the Sun, some of the NCR guys tried to claim it
> was proof that NCRs were better than Suns (what, because it won't let
> you slide by when you depend on undefined behavior behaving in a
> particular way?)

I don't actually think the C standard specifies a behavior for this.  I 
can also tell you that even nowadays AIX will cheerfully permit you to 
dereference a null pointer.

Steve


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