How can I assert() without using abort()?

Question

If I use assert() and the assertion fails then assert() will call abort(), ending the running program abruptly. I can\'t afford that

Answer 1

glib's error reporting functions take the approach of continuing after an assert. glib is the underlying platform independence library that Gnome (via GTK) uses. Here's a macro that checks a precondition and prints a stack trace if the precondition fails.

#define RETURN_IF_FAIL(expr)      do {                  \
 if (!(expr))                                           \
 {                                                      \
         fprintf(stderr,                                \
                "file %s: line %d (%s): precondition `%s' failed.", \
                __FILE__,                                           \
                __LINE__,                                           \
                __PRETTY_FUNCTION__,                                \
                #expr);                                             \
         print_stack_trace(2);                                      \
         return;                                                    \
 };               } while(0)
#define RETURN_VAL_IF_FAIL(expr, val)  do {                         \
 if (!(expr))                                                       \
 {                                                                  \
        fprintf(stderr,                                             \
                "file %s: line %d (%s): precondition `%s' failed.",     \
                __FILE__,                                               \
                __LINE__,                                               \
                __PRETTY_FUNCTION__,                                    \
                #expr);                                                 \
         print_stack_trace(2);                                          \
         return val;                                                    \
 };               } while(0)

Here's the function that prints the stack trace, written for an environment that uses the gnu toolchain (gcc):

void print_stack_trace(int fd)
{
    void *array[256];
    size_t size;

    size = backtrace (array, 256);
    backtrace_symbols_fd(array, size, fd);
}

This is how you'd use the macros:

char *doSomething(char *ptr)
{
    RETURN_VAL_IF_FAIL(ptr != NULL, NULL);  // same as assert(ptr != NULL), but returns NULL if it fails.

    if( ptr != NULL )        // Necessary if you want to define the macro only for debug builds
    {
       ...
    }

    return ptr;
}

void doSomethingElse(char *ptr)
{
    RETURN_IF_FAIL(ptr != NULL);
}