Policy for return by reference values in error cases

[Joel Sherrill]

On Tue, Mar 23, 2021 at 12:58 PM Sebastian Huber <
sebastian.huber at embedded-brains.de> wrote:

> On 23/03/2021 18:48, Joel Sherrill wrote:
>
> > My first thought is that I don't like covering up for applications
> > that do the wrong thing.
> This topic just came up recently in a discussion about defensive
> programming. We also test for NULL pointers.
> >
> > I'm overall rather ambiguous. It is possible that setting the value at
> > the top of the function could lead to overridden before used issues
> > with warnings and static analysis.
>
> You mean code like this:
>
> void (int *x, int y)
>
> {
>
>    *x = 0;
>
>   if (y) {
>
>     *x = 1;
>
> } else {
>
>   *x = 2;
>
> }
>
> ?
>

Yep. That's a pretty clear case.

Others should speak up but I just don't want the solution pattern
to introduce warnings or static analysis reports. It easily could.



> > I don't want to see every error case assign a value to an output
> > parameter though.
> Yes, I don't like this also.
>

I have my own wish list for error paths eventually if we ever get bored. :)


--joel


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