[PATCH][BZ #13724] Do not segfault in pthread_setname_np (x, NULL)

[Rich Felker]

On Tue, Oct 08, 2013 at 12:01:39PM -0400, Carlos O'Donell wrote:
> On 10/07/2013 10:19 AM, Rich Felker wrote:
> >     If you're going to check for NULL pointer arguments where you have
> >     not entered into a contract to accept and interpret them, do it
> >     with an assert, not a conditional error return. This way the bugs
> >     in the caller will be immediately detected and can be fixed, and
> >     it makes it easy to disable the overhead in production builds. I
> >     question the value of the assert except as documentation however;
> >     a segfault from dereferencing the NULL pointer is just as
> >     effective for debugging.
> 
> Should we have an assert there then to document the contract and provide
> a more meaningful error message like a backtrace?

There are probably hundreds of places all over glibc where this same
issue applies. I don't think documenting them all at the source level
via assertions is a productive use of developer time, source code
size, binary size, or changelog and git log clutter. C programmers
should not be treating the passing of NULL where a string is expected
as a diagnosable error but as what it is: undefined behavior. Usually,
a crash will naturally result and be easy enough to debug.

Rich