Re: [PATCH] Use NULL instead of integer 0 in security/selinux/

[Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>]

On Thu, 8 Jul 2004, Timothy Miller wrote:
> 
> Not to be picky, and I realize that we're not using C++ here, and it may 
> not apply, but every C++ text I've read deprecates NULL and says to use 
> 0.  That is, THE WAY that you specify a null pointer in C++ is with a 
> zero.  It's no surprise that C programmers might pick up that habit.

It's a bad habit, and it's one (of many) bad things C++ does. The sad part 
is that C++ does it for all the wrong reasons - there's no reason to not 
realize that ((void *)0) is an even better special case, and indeed last I 
heard at least gcc does allow that in C++ too.

The fact is, when somebody else picks up a mistake, that doesn't make it 
any less of a mistake. And it's not like C++ is the paragon of good taste 
anyway.

I've seen too damn many people mistake NULL and NUL (admit it, you've seen 
it too), and I've seen code like

	char c = NULL;

and any system where that goes through without a warning is totally 
broken. And yes, that includes a _lot_ of C++ braindamages.

		Linus