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Date:      Wed, 15 Mar 2017 22:10:42 -0700
From:      Conrad Meyer <cem@freebsd.org>
To:        Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com>
Cc:        src-committers <src-committers@freebsd.org>,  "svn-src-all@freebsd.org" <svn-src-all@freebsd.org>,  "svn-src-head@freebsd.org" <svn-src-head@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: svn commit: r315360 - head/lib/libkvm
Message-ID:  <CAG6CVpVbtX4s2gOv_zAzn2fSXcYtLU_xe-obfnU6i03sHS8ECg@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CANCZdfrV1XezigONuLb1gYOCPzJL_UiT=mb1gDRH%2BdcMofEwPA@mail.gmail.com>
References:  <201703160231.v2G2VgxK082641@repo.freebsd.org> <CANCZdfqgU8DJTdp4HkVxTU0PNpSGn45wJ0S1su=y2Td_uiVncA@mail.gmail.com> <58A53702-FFF6-45E7-ACCD-9B776530064E@gmail.com> <CANCZdfrV1XezigONuLb1gYOCPzJL_UiT=mb1gDRH%2BdcMofEwPA@mail.gmail.com>

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I don't have much to add.  Warner is totally correct here.  It is a
(good) style cleanup with no functional change.  Let's leave it alone.

Thanks,
Conrad

On Wed, Mar 15, 2017 at 9:53 PM, Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 15, 2017 at 10:44 PM, Ngie Cooper (yaneurabeya)
> <yaneurabeya@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Mar 15, 2017, at 21:32, Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Wed, Mar 15, 2017 at 8:31 PM, Ngie Cooper <ngie@freebsd.org> wrote:
>>>> Author: ngie
>>>> Date: Thu Mar 16 02:31:42 2017
>>>> New Revision: 315360
>>>> URL: https://svnweb.freebsd.org/changeset/base/315360
>>>>
>>>> Log:
>>>>  Return NULL instead of 0 on failure in _kvm_open, kvm_open{,2,files}
>>>>
>>>>  This is being done for the following reasons:
>>>>  - kvm_open(3), etc says they will return NULL.
>>>>  - NULL by definition is (void*)0 per POSIX, but can be redefined,
>>>>    depending on the compiler, etc.
>>>
>>> No, it can't. The C language requires all integral expressions that
>>> evaluate to zero to convert to the NULL pointer. This is independent
>>> of the internal representation of the NULL pointer.
>>>
>>> So this change is an NOP for all compilers. It's a good STYLE change.
>>
>> Someone made an argument a few weeks ago about NULL being definable as a non-zero value on some esoteric architectures or OSes.
>
> No. That's confused. NULL must always be 0. A conversion between 0 and
> a pointer always must give a null-pointer. Always. You can't defined
> NULL to -1 ever. Even if that happens to be the binary representation
> of a NULL pointer, it must be 0.
>
>> I agree though, this is largely stylistic/pedantic for a good cause. If someone set NULL to something non-zero in value, they would be looking for pain :).
>
> You can never set NULL to non-zero integral value (possibly with a
> cast). You can have the internal representation have non-zero bits,
> but the compiler must hide that.
>
> This does mean that M_ZERO and calloc() won't set pointers to null
> pointers on such architectures, but this 0 that you replaced is
> completely safe.
>
> I can provide references to the appropriate standards. I made the same
> point when someone made that (incorrect) argument.
>



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