  def testEmptySparseTensorSlicesInvalid(self):
    """Test a dataset based on invalid `tf.sparse.SparseTensor`."""
    st = array_ops.sparse_placeholder(dtypes.float64)
    iterator = dataset_ops.make_initializable_iterator(
        dataset_ops.Dataset.from_sparse_tensor_slices(st))
    init_op = iterator.initializer

    with self.cached_session() as sess:
      # Test with an empty sparse tensor but with non empty values.
      empty_indices = np.empty((0, 4), dtype=np.int64)
      non_empty_values = [1, 2, 3, 4]
      empty_dense_shape = [0, 4, 37, 9]
      sparse_feed = sparse_tensor.SparseTensorValue(empty_indices,
                                                    non_empty_values,
                                                    empty_dense_shape)
      # Here, we expect the test to fail when running the feed.
      with self.assertRaises(errors.InvalidArgumentError):
        sess.run(init_op, feed_dict={st: sparse_feed})
A NULL pointer dereference occurs when the application dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid, but is NULL, typically causing a crash or exit.