The accidental addition of a data-structure sentinel can cause serious programming logic problems.
Data-structure sentinels are often used to mark the structure of data. A common example of this is the null character at the end of strings or a special sentinel to mark the end of a linked list. It is dangerous to allow this type of control data to be easily accessible. Therefore, it is important to protect from the addition or modification of sentinels.
Encapsulate the user from interacting with data sentinels. Validate user input to verify that sentinels are not present.
Proper error checking can reduce the risk of inadvertently introducing sentinel values into data. For example, if a parsing function fails or encounters an error, it might return a value that is the same as the sentinel.
Use an abstraction library to abstract away risky APIs. This is not a complete solution.
Use OS-level preventative functionality. This is not a complete solution.
Generally this error will cause the data structure to not work properly by truncating the data.