Another comment said that returning a * was to avoid returning null which would crash users of the library who didn't check for null. That seems like a C smell to me

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ethin 44 minutes ago | parent [-]

Not really. This is like if the char* were an Option<String> but you had programs which stupidly didn't check if the Option had something and assumed it always did. As others have said, Rust would not prevent this.

	▲	K0nserv 29 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		`Option<String>` or `Result<String>` forces the check at the callsite. Unlike C, you cannot forget that the function can error. This absolutely helps prevent issues like this. Now, the decision to return `"*"` instead of letting poorly written code crash on `NULL` is not good either.