newlib: fputs aborts on ARM

[Tom Walsh]

Tom Walsh wrote:

> Shaun Jackman wrote:
>
>> 2. Thou shalt not follow the NULL pointer, for chaos and madness await
>> thee at its end.
>> -- The Ten Commandments for C Programmers
>> http://www.lysator.liu.se/c/ten-commandments.html
>>
>> Passing a NULL pointer to a C library function is no different than
>> dereferncing that same NULL pointer yourself. C library functions do
>> not check their arguments for a NULL pointer, just as the C language
>> does not check that an array index is within the bounds of the array.
>> This work is left up to the programmer so that it is her decision when
>> and where to do this work.
>>
>> Consider a putc in an inner loop. The programmer would likely want to
>> check if the FILE* is NULL only once outside of the loop. If putc
>> checked itself, this would be done over and over inside the loop
>> unnecessarily.
>>
>> This case is just one of those burdens the C programmer has to bear.
>>
>>  
>>
> No, I disagree: why sprinkle an addtional 1k of avoidance when you can 
> put a few bytes of prevention?  I don't think so.  I've got 128K of 
> Flash memory space in the one device, it is more to my advantage to 
> recover gracefully than to fail miserably.
>
> The issue not that the behavoir of newlib is "wrong", but if it is 
> problematic, why keep it?  Why not correct it was my original 
> question.  Your position seems to be that crashing the system is the 
> better solution?
>
>
On second though.  You are right, I apologize, I was getting wrapped up 
in the philosophical rather than the practical.

Regards,

TomW



-- 
Tom Walsh - WN3L - Embedded Systems Consultant
http://openhardware.net, http://cyberiansoftware.com
"Windows? No thanks, I have work to do..."
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