0-NULL-nullptr

NULL

In C

A null-pointer constant is an integral constant expression that evaluates to zero (like 0 or 0L), or the cast of such value to type void* (like (void*)0).

In C++98

A null-pointer constant is an integral constant expression that evaluates to zero (such as 0 or 0L).

In C++11

A null-pointer constant is either an integral constant expression that evaluates to zero (such as 0 or 0L), or a value of type nullptr_t (such as nullptr).

From the description of cpluscplus reference, we can see that NULL's definition is compiler dependent. In this blog, I only discuss the behavior of gcc in linux operating system.

// file test.c
#include<stdio.h>

void func(int* p) {
    if (p) *p = 1;
}

int main()
{
    int* p = 0;//NULL;
    func(NULL);

    return 0;
}

use gcc to see what's NULL is:

gcc -E test.c | less

result:

# 2 "test.c" 2

void func(int* p) {
    if (p) *p = 1;
}

int main()
{
    int* p = 0;
    func(((void *)0));

    return 0;
}

we can see that in C, NULL is (void*)0;

In C++

#include<iostream>

void func(int* p) {
    if (p) *p = 1;
}

int main()
{
    int* p = 0;//NULL;
    func(NULL);
    std::cout << p << std::endl;

    return 0;
}

result:

void func(int* p) {
    if (p) *p = 1;
}

int main()
{
    int* p = 0;
    func(__null);
    std::cout << p << std::endl;

    return 0;
}

it's __null, a integral constant expression.

The only change that might affect people is the type of NULL: while it is required to be a macro, the definition of that macro is not allowed to be (void*)0, which is often used in C.

For g++, NULL is #define'd to be __null, a magic keyword extension of g++.

The biggest problem of #defining NULL to be something like “0L” is that the compiler will view that as a long integer before it views it as a pointer, so overloading won't do what you expect. (This is why g++ has a magic extension, so that NULL is always a pointer.)

nullptr

typedef decltype(nullptr) nullptr_t;
Null pointer type (C++)
Type of the null pointer constant nullptr.

This type can only take one value: nullptr, which when converted to a pointer type takes the proper null pointer value.

Even though nullptr_t it is not a keyword, it identifies a distinct fundamental type: the type of nullptr. As such, it participates in overload resolution as a different type.

This type is only defined for C++ (since C++11).