[webkit-dev] Eliminate potential null pointer dereference?

[Benjamin Poulain]

On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 10:53 AM, Luke Macpherson
<macpherson at chromium.org> wrote:
> What do we hope to achieve by adding a test when fixing a bug? To
> prevent a bug from being reintroduced into the codebase at a later
> date. This is a reasonable goal, so let’s remember that the goal is to
> prevent the bug from recurring, not to add a test for its own sake. In
> this case, the potential null pointer dereference was found using
> coverity, a static analysis tool that we run nightly. If the bug were
> to be reintroduced it is reasonable to expect that static analysis
> would be able to find it again.

I remember seeing similar patch based on Coverty, and when asked for a
test, the author discovered the null check was useless in that place
and the code was changed differently.

I wholeheartedly agree we should try to make tests for code changed
based on static code analyzer. This will help making sure the change
is meaningful, and the test would prevent regression.

Benjamin