Re: [Boost-users] boost::ptr_vector null check bloat

Thorsten Ottosen writes:

See

http://www.boost.org/libs/ptr_container/doc/reference.html#disabling-the-use...

Ok, I just checked the preprocessed output, and exceptions are _not_ "disabled", but the boost code seems to contains tons of assertions regardless of what mode (exceptions or no_exceptions) is used.

...

Hmmm I didn't explicitly define any macros, but what the compiled code contains seems to be asserts.

Ok, you need to turn assertions off in release mode, perhaps by using -DNDEBUG=1

Well... generally the whole concept of a special no-checking-at-all "release mode" is a bit alien here. I looked at the code and it seems like the basic problem is that the boost::ptr_sequence_adapter class (at least) is somewhat over-enthusiastic in it's use of assertions: template<...> class ptr_sequence_adapter : public ptr_container_detail::reversible_ptr_container< ptr_container_detail::sequence_config, CloneAllocator > { ... const_reference operator[]( size_type n ) const { ((n < this->size()) ? static_cast<void> (0) : __assert_fail ("n < this->size()", "/usr/include/boost/ptr_container/ptr_sequence_adapter.hpp", 271, __PRETTY_FUNCTION__)); ((!this->is_null( n )) ? static_cast<void> (0) : __assert_fail ("!this->is_null( n )", "/usr/include/boost/ptr_container/ptr_sequence_adapter.hpp", 272, __PRETTY_FUNCTION__)); return *static_cast( this->c_private()[n] ); } } Especially in this case, where there are explicitly two different operations ("at" and operator[]) that allow the user to select which level of low-level safety-checking he wants, such assertions seem out of place. -Miles -- 97% of everything is grunge