The accidental addition of a data-structure sentinel can cause serious programming logic problems.
Encapsulate the user from interacting with data sentinels. Validate user input to verify that sentinels are not present.
Proper error checking can reduce the risk of inadvertently introducing sentinel values into data. For example, if a parsing function fails or encounters an error, it might return a value that is the same as the sentinel.
Use an abstraction library to abstract away risky APIs. This is not a complete solution.
Use OS-level preventative functionality. This is not a complete solution.
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