I find it unhelpful to frame undefined behavior as an “escape hatch” that lets the compiler do anything it wants. Compiler writers aren’t gleefully hunting for issues and using its presence as an excuse to make your life miserable. Instead, the weirdness arises because the compiler makes certain assumptions and transforms the code in ways that depend on them. For example:
1. Null pointers are never dereferenced.
2. Ptr *p is dereferenced.
3. p therefore cannot be null.
4. Ergo, we can omit checking whether p is null.
If the initial premise isn’t actually true (i.e., you slip up and dereference a null pointer), the chain of logic breaks down and boom! Applying many such rules can certainly lead to weird emergent behavior—and maybe you should act as if anything can happen—but it’s not a total free-for-all.
1. Null pointers are never dereferenced.
2. Ptr *p is dereferenced.
3. p therefore cannot be null.
4. Ergo, we can omit checking whether p is null.
If the initial premise isn’t actually true (i.e., you slip up and dereference a null pointer), the chain of logic breaks down and boom! Applying many such rules can certainly lead to weird emergent behavior—and maybe you should act as if anything can happen—but it’s not a total free-for-all.