<HTML>
<HEAD>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<TITLE>
    CWG Issue 583</TITLE>
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
  INS { text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold; background-color:#A0FFA0 }
  .INS { text-decoration:none; background-color:#D0FFD0 }
  DEL { text-decoration:line-through; background-color:#FFA0A0 }
  .DEL { text-decoration:line-through; background-color: #FFD0D0 }
  @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
    HTML { background-color:#202020; color:#f0f0f0; }
    A { color:#5bc0ff; }
    A:visited { color:#c6a8ff; }
    A:hover, a:focus { color:#afd7ff; }
    INS { background-color:#033a16; color:#aff5b4; }
    .INS { background-color: #033a16; }
    DEL { background-color:#67060c; color:#ffdcd7; }
    .DEL { background-color:#67060c; }
  }
  SPAN.cmnt { font-family:Times; font-style:italic }
</STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<P><EM>This is an unofficial snapshot of the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC22 WG21
  Core Issues List revision 118b.
  See http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/ for the official
  list.</EM></P>
<P>2025-09-28</P>
<HR>
<A NAME="583"></A><H4>583.
  
Relational pointer comparisons against the null pointer constant
</H4>
<B>Section: </B>7.6.9&#160; [<A href="https://wg21.link/expr.rel">expr.rel</A>]
 &#160;&#160;&#160;

 <B>Status: </B>CD3
 &#160;&#160;&#160;

 <B>Submitter: </B>James Widman
 &#160;&#160;&#160;

 <B>Date: </B>24 May 2006<BR>


<P>[Moved to DR status at the April, 2013 meeting as paper N3624.]</P>



<P>In C, this is ill-formed (cf C99 6.5.8):</P>

<PRE>
    void f(char* s) {
        if (s &lt; 0) { }
    }
</PRE>

<P>...but in C++, it's not.  Why?  Who would ever need to write
<TT>(s &gt; 0)</TT>
when they could just as well write <TT>(s != 0)</TT>?</P>

<P>This has been in the language since the ARM (and possibly earlier);
apparently it's because the pointer conversions (7.3.12 [<A href="https://wg21.link/conv.ptr">conv.ptr</A>]) need to be performed on both operands whenever one of
the operands is of pointer type.  So it looks like the
"null-ptr-to-real-pointer-type" conversion is hitching a ride with the
other pointer conversions.</P>

<P><B>Proposed resolution (April, 2013):</B></P>

<P>This issue is resolved by the resolution of
<A HREF="1512.html">issue 1512</A>.</P>

<BR><BR>
</BODY>
</HTML>
