I don't know about you, but intentionally segfaulting is not something I want in my application.

And having a discussion on a feature that requires your application to be ill formed is a waste of everyone's time.

A pointer is either null, valid, or not null but invalid (if used it's a bug).
What need is there for a 4th state that is invalid, not null but another very specific value? When in all honesty null is already a good indicator that a pointer is invalid?



________________________________
From: Std-Proposals <std-proposals-bounces_at_[hidden]> on behalf of Frederick Virchanza Gotham via Std-Proposals <std-proposals_at_[hidden]>
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2025 9:18:44 PM
Cc: Frederick Virchanza Gotham <cauldwell.thomas_at_[hidden]>; std-proposals_at_[hidden] <std-proposals_at_[hidden]>
Subject: Re: [std-proposals] Standardising 0xdeadbeef for pointers



On Friday, July 25, 2025, Oliver Hunt wrote:

If you decide carte blanche “0xbadbeef” must be an invalid pointer you’ve literally just made large allocations impossible on 32 bit machines by fracturing the address space.



Hence this discussion.