From:	rminnich AT sarnoff DOT com (Ron G. Minnich)
Subject:	strlen on NULL, final test
13 May 1998 23:25:52 -0700 :
Message-ID:	<Pine.SUN.3.91.980513103235.8402A-100000.cygnus.gnu-win32@terra>
References:	<6tksqweppfB AT mike DOT franken DOT de>
Mime-Version:	1.0
To:	gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com

to finish this off once and for all, someone raised the question of a
strlen that might test the argument to see if it's equal to 0, and then
return 0. 

First, the empty string and the null string are different, and length of 
a null string has no meaning. 
Second, if you have null pointers, as others say, fix your code. 

But, even though it's a bad idea, who knows: someone might do it. 

bash$ cat test.c
main()
{
  (void) strlen((char *) 0);
}

bash$ cc test.c
bash$ ./a.out
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
bash$ 

Again: linux, freebsd, sunos, solaris.

So I have not yet seen the strlen that works with strlen((char *)0);

ron

Ron Minnich                |Java: an operating-system-independent, 
rminnich AT sarnoff DOT com       |architecture-independent programming language
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