I certainly agree that NULL pointers are a common feature of C libraries ... I'm not convinced that the need to pass NULL pointers from perl to C functions is all that common.

There are many discussions about what is the right approach and there seems to be not an established consensus from what I read around. But!
Considering the nature of the tool is to glue to a different language interface, ( i.e. a collection of functions), then any source type you map into C/C++ will be used in the majority of cases as a function argument.

Consider also that NULL as argument is not just a poor C programming practice because often you need a "special" value to signal conditions, sometimes is even required(!) e.g.: strtok(3)/snprintf(3)/gettimeofday(2).

As SWIG already does, undef ==> NULL feels completely natural and I personally consider the lack in Inline as a bug. I've already solved by using SWIG as usual, maybe some Inline::C users could take from here and consider opening a related enhancement request.

In reply to Re^9: Inline::C and NULL pointers by markong
in thread Inline::C and NULL pointers by markong

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