Undefined behavior is often a thing for C programmers (2011)

Re:Undefined behavior is often a thing for C programmers (2011) by ryandrake on Thursday September 03, 2020 @11:11AM (#24364788)

This is one of the humps that C programmers eventually just need to get past: That UB means literally anything is possible[1]. Not just what you currently see happening with the current version of your compiler on your current platform. Anything! We've all run into a few programmers who would insist that their particular invocation of undefined behavior was fine, because as you said, it "behaves in some particular way". Now that we have more aggressively optimizing compilers we don't run into those folks so much anymore.

I wouldn't say it's a minuscule factor in my daily work, as OP put it, but it's not something to agonize about if you stay mindful of avoiding common undefined behavior pitfalls. It would be very helpful if compilers were better about warning you when you're venturing into UB, but that's a different topic.

1: You can even get the shirt: https://teespring.com/shop/undefined-behavior-shirt

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Re:Undefined behavior is often a thing for C programmers (2011) by perl4ever on Thursday September 03, 2020 @06:34PM (#24369639)

>That UB means literally anything is possible

Many people say this but nobody "literally" believes it.

It's a way of expressing the righteous dominance of one person or group's attitude towards reasonableness over another's. In a way that forestalls argument.

"Literally anything" could literally mean global thermonuclear war.

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