Null Pointer Dereferencing Causes Undefined Behavior
I have unintentionally raised a large debate recently concerning the question if it is legal in C/C++ to use the &P->m_foo expression with P being a null pointer. The programmers' community divided into two camps. The first claimed with confidence that it wasn't legal while the others were as sure saying that it was. Both parties gave various arguments and links, and it occurred to me at some point that I had to make things clear.
Null Pointer Dereferencing Causes Undefined Behavior
by Andrey Karpov
From the article:
This code is incorrect in both C and C++ when the podhd pointer equals 0. If the pointer equals 0, undefined behavior occurs.