On 28.05.2011 19:56, Michel Fortin wrote:
On 2011-05-28 12:32:59 -0400, simendsjo <simen.end...@pandavre.com> said:
I don't think I understand the use case for assert(0) then.. I thought
it was just a way getting assert in release mode.
The use case for assert(0) is the same as any assert(whatever): checking
for things that shouldn't happen. Normally compiling in release mode
would strip all the asserts to make things slimmer and faster. But given
there is no cost in checking for assert(0), those are not stripped, they
are just replaced with a halt instruction. So the assert's still there,
but you don't have a message for it nor the line number.
If you want to see where the assertion happens, you can either compile
in non-release mode or you can hook a debugger to your release
executable and wait for the assert to happen.
Thanks to both.
I got confused about by Vladimir's comment: "The optimization and code
generation phases of compilation may assume that it is unreachable code."
I tested this now, and the compiler does indeed complain about
unreachable code.
And the debugger also breaks, so it makes more sense now :)
