Lesson plan
Void safety
Void safety (also known as null safety) is a guarantee within an object-oriented programming language that no object references will have null or void values. In object-oriented languages, access to objects is achieved through references (or, equivalently, pointers). A typical call is of the form x.f(a, ...) , where f denotes an operation and x denotes a reference to some object. At execution time, however, a reference can be void (or null ). In such cases, the call above will be a void call, leading to a run-time exception, often resulting in abnormal termination of the program. Void safety is a static (compile-time) guarantee that a void call will never arise.
Article summary
Void safety (also known as null safety) is a guarantee within an object-oriented programming language that no object references will have null or void values. In object-oriented languages, access to objects is achieved through references (or, equivalently, pointers). A typical call is of the form x.f(a, ...) , where f denotes an operation and x denotes a reference to some object. At execution time, however, a reference can be void (or null ). In such cases, the call above will be a void call, leading to a run-time exception, often resulting in abnormal termination of the program. Void safety is a static (compile-time) guarantee that a void call will never arise.
Key claims
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.