0xDEADBEEF vs. NULL

Question

Throughout various code, I have seen memory allocation in debug builds with NULL...

memset(ptr,NULL,size);

Or with 0xDEA

Answer 1

Vote me down if this is too opinion-y for StackOverflow but I think this whole discussion is a symptom of a glaring hole in the toolchain we use to make software.

Detecting uninititialized variables by initializing memory with "garabage-y" values detects only some kinds of errors in some kinds of data.

And detecting uninititialized variables in debug builds but not for release builds is like following safety procedures only when testing an aircraft and telling the flying public to be satisfied with "well, it tested OK".

WE NEED HARDWARE SUPPORT for detecting uninitialized variables. As in something like an "invalid" bit that accompanies every addressability entity of memory (=byte on most of our machines) and which is set by the OS in every byte VirtualAlloc() (et. al, or equivalents on other OS's) hands over to applications and which is automatically cleared when the byte is written to but which causes an exception if read first.

Memory is cheap enough for this and processors are fast enough for this. This end of reliance on "funny" patterns and keeps us all honest to boot.