How do we check if a pointer is NULL pointer?

Question

I always think simply if(p != NULL){..} will do the job. But after reading this Stack Overflow question, it seems not.

So what\'s the canonical way to c

Answer 1

The compiler must provide a consistent type system, and provide a set of standard conversions. Neither the integer value 0 nor the NULL pointer need to be represented by all-zero bits, but the compiler must take care of converting the "0" token in the input file to the correct representation for integer zero, and the cast to pointer type must convert from integer to pointer representation.

The implication of this is that

void *p;
memset(&p, 0, sizeof p);
if(p) { ... }

is not guaranteed to behave the same on all target systems, as you are making an assumption about the bit pattern here.

As an example, I have an embedded platform that has no memory protection, and keeps the interrupt vectors at address 0, so by convention, integers and pointers are XORed with 0x2000000 when converted, which leaves (void *)0 pointing at an address that generates a bus error when dereferenced, however testing the pointer with an if statement will return it to integer representation first, which is then all-zeros.