The following reply was made to PR port-xen/29887; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Martin Husemann <martin@duskware.de>
To: gnats-bugs@netbsd.org
Cc: 
Subject: Re: port-xen/29887: sysctl kern.consdev coredumps
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 14:34:49 +0200

 YAMAMOTO Takashi wrote:
 
 > i'd say the proper fix is:
 >        - change the callers of printf not to expect printf("%s\n", NULL) work.
 >        - and disable the optimization in gcc.
 
 I'd say the former is enough. Historical practise or not, good code should
 not rely on NULL pointers passed to printf to work. Maybe a note in the man
 page, explaining the historical practice and the depreciation.
 
 Neither gcc nor printf need to be changed, if we fix all callers.
 
 Martin