Question

Obviously, dereferencing an invalid pointer causes undefined behavior. But what about simply storing an invalid memory address in a pointer variable?

Consider the following code:

const char* str = "abcdef";
const char* begin = str;
if (begin - 1 < str) { /* ... do something ... */ }

The expression begin - 1 evaluates to an invalid memory address. Note that we don’t actually dereference this address – we simply use it in pointer arithmetic to test if it is valid. Nonetheless, we still have to load an invalid memory address into a register.

So, is this undefined behavior? I never thought it was, since a lot of pointer arithmetic seems to rely on this sort of thing, and a pointer is really nothing but an integer anyway. But recently I heard that even the act of loading an invalid pointer into a register is undefined behavior, since certain architectures will automatically throw a bus error or something if you do that. Can anyone point me to the relevant part of the C or C++ standard which settles this either way?

Answer 1

I have the C Draft Standard here, and it makes it undefined by omission. It defines the case of ptr + I at 6.5.6/8 for

• If the pointer operand points to an element of an array object, and the array is large enough, the result points to an element offset from the original element such that the difference of the subscripts of the resulting and original array elements equals the integer expression.
• Moreover, if the expression P points to the last element of an array object, the expression (P)+1 points one past the last element of the array object, and if the expression Q points one past the last element of an array object, the expression (Q)-1 points to the last element of the array object.

Your case does not fit any of these. Neither is your array large enough to have -1 adjust the pointer to point to a different array element, nor does any of the result or original pointer point one-past-end.