[fpc-devel] fpc_pchar_length error

[Jonas Maebe]

On 11 dec 2005, at 22:22, Alexandrov Alexandru wrote:

>> It depends on the specs of "length" :-)
>
> What do you mean with specs?

How it is defined to behave in the documentation (i.e., whether the  
documentation says "if you call length with as argument a nil  
pointer, the result is defined to be 0", or "the behaviour of length  
with as argument a nil pointer is undefined", or simply doesn't  
mention it at all).

> btw i forgot to mention, i tested on winxp.
> In Delphi the result is 0, and no error.

Delphi obviously is a lot more tolerant to bad programming than we  
are... A pchar which is nil is not an empty string, but an invalid  
pointer. It's like assuming that a nil pointer to a longint is the  
same as a pointer to the value 0 or so.


Jonas