On Thu, 17 May 2012 00:08:49 +0100, Jonathan M Davis <[email protected]>
wrote:
On Wednesday, May 16, 2012 09:18:38 Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
but I still think we should discourage using null as a
sentinel, it leads to confusing code.
If null were actually properly differentiated from empty, then this
wouldn't be
a problem, but it's not. It _should_ be possible to treat null as a
sentinel.
The fact that it causes issues is a major flaw in the language IMHO. But
given
that flaw, it does very quickly become error-prone to use null as a
sentinel.
In general, I'd say that the only reasonable place to do so is when
returning
an array (and especially a string) from a function. The return value can
then
be immeditely checked with is null before it has the chance to have
something
happen to it which could cause it to be empty but non-null.
I want to re-re-re-register my dismay in the situation also. For me it
always comes back to.. I can do it with a pointer.. a pointer! Why not an
array?!?
R
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