title: Is there any point to temporarily making a pointer NULL?
body: <p>I've seen lots of code like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>SomeType* ptr = NULL;
  ptr = SomeMethod(some, params);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>What's the point? I've also seen it where <code>ptr</code> is declared somewhere else (for example in a class definition) and then in the class constructor there'd be this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>ptr = NULL;
  ptr = SomeMethod(some, params);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I don't understand why this is done. Surely the <code>ptr = NULL</code> line is useless?</p>