Pulse is an interprocedural memory safety analysis. Pulse can detect, for instance, [Null dereferences](/docs/next/all-issue-types#nullptr_dereference) in Java. Errors are only reported when all conditions on the erroneous path are true regardless of input. Pulse should gradually replace the original [biabduction](/docs/next/checker-biabduction) analysis of Infer. An example of a Null dereference found by Pulse is given below.
```java
class Person {
Person emergencyContact;
String address;
Person getEmergencyContact() {
return this.emergencyContact;
}
}
class Registry {
void create() {
Person p = new Person();
Person c = p.getEmergencyContact();
// Null dereference here
System.out.println(c.address);
}
void printContact(Person p) {
// No null dereference, as we don't know anything about `p`
Pulse reports a Null dereference on this file on `create()`, as it tries to access the field `address` of object `c`, and `c` has value `null`. In contrast, Pulse gives no report for `printContact(Person p)`, as we cannot be sure that `p.getEmergencyContact()` will return `null`. Pulse then labels this error as latent and only reports if there is a call to `printContact(Person p)` satisfying the condition for Null dereference.
### Pulse x Nullsafe
[Nullsafe](/docs/next/checker-eradicate) is a type checker for `@Nullable` annotations for Java. Classes following the Nullsafe discipline are annotated with `@Nullsafe`.
Consider the classes `Person` and `Registry` from the previous example. Assuming that class `Person` is annotated with `@Nullsafe`. In this case, we also annotate `getEmergencyContact()` with `@Nullable`, to make explicit that this method can return the `null` value. There is still the risk that classes depending on `Person` have Null dereferences. In this case, Pulse would report a Null dereference on `Registry`. It could also be the case that class `Registry` is annotated with `@Nullsafe`. By default Pulse reports on `@Nullsafe` files too, see the `--pulse-nullsafe-report-npe` option (Facebook-specific: Pulse does not report on `@Nullsafe` files).
