Re: [boost] Interest in super string class?

From: Gennaro Prota (gennaro_prota_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-07-05 11:56:39

On Wed, 5 Jul 2006 11:09:58 -0400, Jody Hagins
<jody-boost-011304_at_[hidden]> wrote:

>[...]
>0p or null would certainly help clarify the "null-pointer" issue.
>
>I assume you have done something similar to moving code to x86_64?

Not in the sense you probably mean (I know of people who use my code
on 64-bit platforms though). I've never followed Stroustrup's advice
to use "0", because I had a (slight) hope that I could grep for "NULL"
some day in the future and replace it with something better: this is
from an old post of mine on c.l.c++.m (the message is very long, so
I'll directly quote the relevant part here)

  As to using 0 vs. NULL I prefer NULL (mainly in the hope that
  I can grep and replace it easily if a true null pointer constant
  will be introduced in C++) [...] If the language had a true,
  type-safe, overload-compatible null pointer constant then we
  could start discussing on real technical basis.

The NULL definition was an error. They wanted to prohibit (void*)0,
because it implied a special case of implicit conversion from void* to
object pointer. But they probably didn't realize they were replacing
it with something requiring a special case for 'int and any integral
or enumeration type' -> pointer, which is worse.

 enum { e = 32 };
 const int null =

            !!!!!       !!!!       !!!!      !!!!!!   !!!!!!!!
            !    !     !!  !!     !!  !!     !!          !!
            !!!!!     !!    !!   !!    !!    !!!!!!      !!
            !!!!!     !!    !!   !!    !!        !!      !!
            !    !     !!  !!     !!  !!         !!      !!
            !!!!!       !!!!       !!!!      !!!!!!      !!

  (e >> 6) * ('9'-'1') * sizeof(char);

 void (*p)() = null;

>So... the rule now is to use NULL anytime a vararg function is being
>called...  0 otherwise...  until we run into the next problem...

That doesn't solve the problem if NULL is used from C++.

As to nullptr... the current accepted naming style is/was (a) avoiding
abbreviations (b) separating different words with underscore. That
suggests "null_pointer" but... hey we have shared_ptr, so why not
null_ptr? Oh no, we don't like underscores :)

--
[ Gennaro Prota, C++ developer for hire ]
[    resume:  available on request      ]