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In some programming language environments (at least one proprietary Lisp implementation, for example), [citation needed] the value used as the null pointer (called nil in Lisp) may actually be a pointer to a block of internal data useful to the implementation (but not explicitly reachable from user programs), thus allowing the same register to be used as a useful constant and a quick way of ...
Null pointer dereference – A null pointer dereference will often cause an exception or program termination in most environments, but can cause corruption in operating system kernels or systems without memory protection or when use of the null pointer involves a large or negative offset.
Dereferencing a null pointer and then assigning to it (writing a value to a non-existent target) also usually causes a segmentation fault: int * ptr = NULL ; * ptr = 1 ; The following code includes a null pointer dereference, but when compiled will often not result in a segmentation fault, as the value is unused and thus the dereference will ...
To expose dangling pointer errors, one common programming technique is to set pointers to the null pointer or to an invalid address once the storage they point to has been released. When the null pointer is dereferenced (in most languages) the program will immediately terminate—there is no potential for data corruption or unpredictable behavior.
The language does not provide any explicit pointer manipulation operators. It is still possible for code to attempt to dereference a null reference (null pointer), however, which results in a run-time exception being thrown. The space occupied by unreferenced memory objects is recovered automatically by garbage collection at run-time. [20]
Depending on the operating system, the CPU can automatically detect such an invalid access (e.g. for the null value: a null pointer dereference error). This supports in analyzing the actual reason, a programming error, in debugging , and it can also be used to abort the program in production use, to prevent it from continuing with invalid data ...
An exception handling mechanism allows the procedure to raise an exception [2] if this precondition is violated, [1] for example if the procedure has been called on an abnormal set of arguments. The exception handling mechanism then handles the exception. [3] The precondition, and the definition of exception, is subjective.
In object-oriented computer programming, a null object is an object with no referenced value or with defined neutral (null) behavior.The null object design pattern, which describes the uses of such objects and their behavior (or lack thereof), was first published as "Void Value" [1] and later in the Pattern Languages of Program Design book series as "Null Object".