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Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 18:33:00 -0000
From: Mike Mason <mmlnx@us.ibm.com>
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To: systemtap@sources.redhat.com
Subject: Pointer chain paranoia
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I'm looking for opinions from the systemtap community... How paranoid should we be when following pointer chains in tapsets and scripts?  I think we should use deref() unless we're absolutely sure there's no chance of referencing a null or bad pointer, but, of course, that'll add a lot of code. I'm not sure how you can ever be absolutely sure, particularly for longer chains.  What guidance should we give tapset and script writers?

Mike