From: lzirko AT aye DOT net (Lou Zirko) Subject: Re: strlen on a NULL 14 May 1998 07:20:01 -0700 Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.19980513115943.00a376e0.cygnus.gnu-win32@aye.net> References: <199805121625 DOT JAA24637 AT cardoon DOT adoc DOT xerox DOT com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: Rich Hyde Cc: Ian Collins , gnuwin32 I can remember crashing HPUX ten years ago due to this `anomoly`. True different systems reacted differently. Lou Zirko On 09:25 AM 5/12/98 PDT entities calling themselves Rich Hyde spewed the following words of wisdom: >On some of the original UNIX machines address 0 was mapped and pointed to the >magic number at the start of the kernel object. > >It was common on these systems to find files in the filesystem with this >string as a name. This was true for most PDP11s. On the VAX the location >often contained a zero. On the early SUN and some other platforms >address zero was typically not a valid address, and they would core dump. >Some of these platforms had hardware limitations that made mapping zero >either hard or impossible. So they maintained it was a software bug. Others >were offended by the sloppiness and deliberately did not fix this. > >It became a big enough problem that many UNIXes provided a >kernel compilation flag to not map address zero if you wanted to make sure >that the code you developed would work on other systems. > >It started out as a bug, then some depended on it as a feature, then it became >a bug again. I stopped tracking this bug 12 or more years ago so I do not >know if the mindless masses have decided that it is a bug or a feature again, >as these things seem to change with the wind. > >Rich > >- >For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to >"gnu-win32-request AT cygnus DOT com" with one line of text: "help". > > Lou Zirko Key fingerprint = E89C 8AA2 52C7 0E7B 73D1 1D96 2EF3 7B3D 864D FADE "Were all bozos on this bus", Nick Danger, Third Eye -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 GCM d+(--)@>- s+(++)>+++:+(++)> a+ C++(++++)$ UBLUAVHIOSC*++++(on++++)$>++++ P++(+++)$ L++++$ E$ W++(+++)$ N++(+++)>$ o>$ !K(---) w+++(++++)$ O$ !M V-$ PS+(+++)@ PE@ Y++>$ PGP++(+++)$ t+>$ !5 X++>$ R+>$ tv+>$ b++ DI++(++++)>+++$ D++>$ G++>$ e++(+++)? h+(++)>$ r>$ y ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------ - For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to "gnu-win32-request AT cygnus DOT com" with one line of text: "help".