Re: Bug#192537: sort segfaults with argv[0] = NULL

[Paul Eggert]

Jim Meyering <address@hidden> writes:

> You're probably already aware that very many programs assume that
> `argc' is always 1 or larger, and hence dereference argv[0]
> unconditionally.

POSIX requires that any Strictly Conforming POSIX Application must
pass at least one argument to the exec function family, thus
guaranteeing that argv[0] can be dereferenced unconditionally in the
exec'ed program.  See the RATIONALE section of
<http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/functions/exec.html>.

I suppose it's a bit nicer if programs work even when argv[0] is NULL,
but this would require hacking a lot of code, and it sounds a bit like
makework to me.  So, like Jim, I'm curious as to the motivation for
this bug report.