On 23/08/2025 06:05, organicoman via Std-Proposals wrote:
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> Sent from my Galaxy

(Please fix this if you can - use a better email program that handles
attributions and quotation indents correctly. It makes it a lot easier
to see who has written what.)

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> On Fri, Aug 22, 2025 at 11:04 PM organicoman via Std-Proposals
> <std-proposals_at_[hidden]> wrote:


>> Does the standard mandate that dereferencing the null pointer is a
>> "guaranteed runtime error"? Because, last time I checked, it was
>> undefined behavior that's no different from dereferencing a pointer to
>> an object past its lifetime.
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>> So from the perspective of the standard, this would do absolutely
>> nothing different.
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> Standard wise you are right, but OS wise it's a segfault, and that's
> more important.
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Fortunately for a great many of the C++ users out there, what the
standards say is important, /not/ what particular OS's do. The majority
of "things running software" out there do not run an OS that has a
concept of "segfault" - the majority do not use an OS at all. C++ is
wider than just Windows and *nix.

And even on *nix or Windows, dereferencing a null pointer is in no way
guaranteed to give a segfault. Dereferencing a null pointer is
undefined behaviour, and can cause daemons to be launched from your
nose. /That/ is more important.