Bug Spotlight : What the heck is DEAD_STORE and why should I care?

A dead_store is when a value is written but never read or used by the rest of the program. Many developers think of dead stores as style issues, or at most “about good hygiene.” But actually, they can consume memory, and can also identify error codes that aren’t being checked when they should.

The Dead Store issue below shows a return value being captured but not checked. This particular return value represents an error code and so an error condition is not being handled.

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