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Inconsistent nullness check

ID: cpp/inconsistent-null-check
Kind: problem
Security severity: 
Severity: error
Precision: medium
Tags:
   - reliability
   - correctness
   - statistical
   - non-attributable
   - external/cwe/cwe-476
Query suites:
   - cpp-security-and-quality.qls

Click to see the query in the CodeQL repository

A common source of defects is to forget to check if the result of a function call was NULL. This rules detects calls to a function where most other calls check the result for NULL but this particular call does not. This is inconsistent with the rest of the code and may be a defect or at least confusing for other developers.

The flagged calls will not necessarily result in run-time errors, but all of them benefit from being audited. It is important not to mechanically add nullness checks at every flagged location, because an unnecessary nullness check is very confusing to other developers. A developer that is familiar with the code will most likely immediately know what the right action is on a null result, and if that is not the case there is most likely something confusing about the API of the called function.

Recommendation

Diagnose if the called function can actually return NULL with the context at this particular call. If that is the case the code should be updated to cater for that situation. If the call can not return null in this location, it may be good to add an assert to document that the code does not handle NULL. This documentation is important since most calls expect to receive a NULL value.

Example

struct property {
  char *name;
  int value;
};

struct property * get_property(char *key);
struct property * get_property_default(char *key, int default_value);

void check_properties() {
  // this call will get flagged since most
  // calls to get_property handle NULL
  struct property *p1 = get_property("time");
  if(p1->value > 600) {
    ...
  }

  // this call will not get flagged since
  // the result of the call is checked for NULL
  struct property *p2 = get_property("time");
  if(p2 != NULL && p2->value > 600) {
    ...
  }

  // this call will not get flagged since calls
  // to get_property_default rarely handle NULL
  struct property *p3 = get_property_default("time", 50);
  if(p3->value > 60) {
    ...
  }
}

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