Using NULL in C++?

In C++ NULL expands to 0 or 0L. See this quote from Stroustrup's FAQ:

Should I use NULL or 0?

In C++, the definition of NULL is 0, so there is only an aesthetic difference. I prefer to avoid macros, so I use 0. Another problem with NULL is that people sometimes mistakenly believe that it is different from 0 and/or not an integer. In pre-standard code, NULL was/is sometimes defined to something unsuitable and therefore had/has to be avoided. That's less common these days.

If you have to name the null pointer, call it nullptr; that's what it's called in C++11. Then, "nullptr" will be a keyword.

The downside of NULL in C++ is that it is a define for 0. This is a value that can be silently converted to pointer, a bool value, a float/double, or an int.

That is not very type safe and has lead to actual bugs in an application I worked on.

Consider this:

void Foo(int i);
void Foo(Bar* b);
void Foo(bool b);


main()
{
     Foo(0);         
     Foo(NULL); // same as Foo(0)
} 

C++11 defines a nullptr that is convertible to a null pointer but not to other scalars. This is supported in all modern C++ compilers, including VC++ as of 2008. In older versions of GCC there is a similar feature, but then it was called __null.