derefencing NULL pointer with gnu ld

[Periklis Beltas <periklis_beltas@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,
We are porting some software from HP-UX to RedHat
Enterprise. While using HP UX, we were able to
successfully dereference NULL pointers by using the
"-Z" option while compiling using aCC/gcc. But this
option does not exist on gnu ld (version: GNU ld
version 2.14.90.0.4 20030523). We were wondering if
there was a similar option that would enable us to
successfully dereference NULL pointers without
crashing the code on Redhat Linux (version: Enterprise
3.1). 
 
Thanks.
Periklis Beltas