Re: OFFTOPIC: core dumped with strcpy,atoi,sprintf.

On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 10:37 AM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> "Ing.Edmundo.Robles.Lopez" <erobles(at)sensacd(dot)com(dot)mx> writes:
>> Debugging the program, found that the core is generated by atoi,
>> sprintf and similar functions; because that functions fails when
>> received a null pointer (NULL). But, if the functions received an
>> empty string ("") the program continues and run succesfully.
>
>> Yes, I should validate each input pointers. But, its odd that works in
>> SCO and not in Linux, and its odder that fails in functions like strcpy,
>> atoi, sprintf, etc.
>
> Not really. Per the POSIX spec, the behavior of those functions is
> undefined for NULL input pointers. Some platforms are forgiving about
> it, most are not.

I learned C on a platform with no memory protection wherein a null
pointer would result in a write to location 0 and an immediate machine
crash. Wow, that was a LONG time ago (late 80s). Kids today. Got it
easy.