Martijn van Oosterhout wrote:
On Thu, May 04, 2006 at 12:29:30AM -0700, Don Y wrote:
OTOH, if the function could *abort* it's invocation, then
I don't have to worry about return values. It is a closer
model to the STRICT behavior -- instead of aborting the
function invocation BEFORE (which STRICT essentially does),
I could abort it AFTER invocation (once I had detected
the NULL argument)
Are you sure you understand what STRICT does? STRICT doesn't abort
anything. STRICT means "if this function gets called with any NULL
arguments, the result is NULL". Since this is correct behaviour for the
vast majority of functions, it's implemented as a flag rather than
requiring each and every function to check.
Ah, I have misunderstood this! I saw it as "if invoked with NULL,
don't invoke the function" -- which, I guess, is somewhat consistent
with your comment... the function isn't invoked, BUT 'NULL' IS
SUBSTITUTED FOR IT'S RETURN VALUE.
Also, anything that calls a function must be prepared to handle a NULL
return value. Any function can return NULL, even if only because it is
declared strict and you passed a null argument...
So, even the functions that I am defining that ALWAYS return
particular types have to be treated AS IF they could return NULL?
(in the case you describe -- the opposite case that I have been
describing)
Hmmm... that might make things even easier!
