C/C++ strlen函数为什么不能传入空指针NULL？

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main()
{
	int a;
	char *name = NULL;
	a = strlen(name);	
	return 0;
}

以上程序编译没问题，运行将会报错。

原因就是name为NULL，strlen参数不能为NULL，为探究原因，我查看了glibc对strlen函数的实现代码如下：

#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

#undef strlen

#ifndef STRLEN
# define STRLEN strlen
#endif
size_t STRLEN(const char *str)
{
	const char *char_ptr;
	const unsigned long int *longword_ptr;
	unsigned long int longword, himagic, lomagic;

	// Handle the first few characters by reading one character at a time.
	//Do this until CHAR_PTR is aligned on a longword boundary.  
	for (char_ptr = str; ((unsigned long int) char_ptr & (sizeof(longword) - 1)) != 0; ++char_ptr)
		if (*char_ptr == '\0') return char_ptr - str;
	longword_ptr = (unsigned long int *) char_ptr;

	/* Bits 31, 24, 16, and 8