Question

Why it is essential to initialize NULL pointer

Answer 1

NULL pointer in C
At the very high level, we can think of NULL as null pointer which is used in C for various purposes. Some of the most common use cases for NULL are
a) To initialize a pointer variable when that pointer variable isn’t assigned any valid memory address yet.
b) To check for null pointer before accessing any pointer variable. By doing so, we can perform error handling in pointer related code e.g. dereference pointer variable only if it’s not NULL.
c) To pass a null pointer to a function argument when we don’t want to pass any valid memory address.
It should be noted that NULL pointer is different from uninitialized and dangling pointer. In a specific program context, all uninitialized or dangling or NULL pointers are invalid but NULL is a specific invalid pointer which is mentioned in C standard and has specific purposes. What we mean is that uninitialized and dangling pointers are invalid but they can point to some memory address that may be accessible though the memory access is unintended.

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