From: Jason Hise <chaos@ezequal.com>
Dave Harris wrote:
In-Reply-To: <4343103A.6010007@dcook.org> darren@dcook.org (Darren Cook) wrote (abridged):
I think it is fair to assume people don't have assert(false) in code that is ready for release - it is just used temporarily during debugging.
No, it isn't fair to assume that. I have:
if (e) { assert(false); throw "can't happen"; }
or similar in release code.
Isn't that an abuse of assert? IOW, shouldn't you either make it
Not at all.
exclusively a debug mode check, or make it a check in both modes? It seems that that should either become:
assert ( !e );
or:
if ( e ) throw "can't happen";
Why do you need both types of checks in the same place?
That way a debug build asserts, which likely gets a core dump, and a release build throws an exception. If the exception is a type that is never caught in the code except in main(), then main() can report the problem and exit. That gives a clean exit with a diagnostic in release builds, while giving the opportunity for post mortem debugging in debug builds. -- Rob Stewart stewart@sig.com Software Engineer http://www.sig.com Susquehanna International Group, LLP using std::disclaimer;