What is the “assert” function?

Question

I\'ve been studying OpenCV tutorials and came across the assert function; what does it do?

Answer 1

assert will terminate the program (usually with a message quoting the assert statement) if its argument turns out to be false. It's commonly used during debugging to make the program fail more obviously if an unexpected condition occurs.

For example:

assert(length >= 0);  // die if length is negative.

You can also add a more informative message to be displayed if it fails like so:

assert(length >= 0 && "Whoops, length can't possibly be negative! (didn't we just check 10 lines ago?) Tell jsmith");

Or else like this:

assert(("Length can't possibly be negative! Tell jsmith", length >= 0));

When you're doing a release (non-debug) build, you can also remove the overhead of evaluating assert statements by defining the NDEBUG macro, usually with a compiler switch. The corollary of this is that your program should never rely on the assert macro running.

// BAD
assert(x++);

// GOOD
assert(x);    
x++;

// Watch out! Depends on the function:
assert(foo());

// Here's a safer way:
int ret = foo();
assert(ret);

From the combination of the program calling abort() and not being guaranteed to do anything, asserts should only be used to test things that the developer has assumed rather than, for example, the user entering a number rather than a letter (which should be handled by other means).

Answer 2

The assert() function can diagnose program bugs. In C, it is defined in <assert.h>, and in C++ it is defined in <cassert>. Its prototype is

void assert(int expression);

The argument expression can be anything you want to test--a variable or any C expression. If expression evaluates to TRUE, assert() does nothing. If expression evaluates to FALSE, assert() displays an error message on stderr and aborts program execution.

How do you use assert()? It is most frequently used to track down program bugs (which are distinct from compilation errors). A bug doesn't prevent a program from compiling, but it causes it to give incorrect results or to run improperly (locking up, for example). For instance, a financial-analysis program you're writing might occasionally give incorrect answers. You suspect that the problem is caused by the variable interest_rate taking on a negative value, which should never happen. To check this, place the statement

assert(interest_rate >= 0); at locations in the program where interest_rate is used. If the variable ever does become negative, the assert() macro alerts you. You can then examine the relevant code to locate the cause of the problem.

To see how assert() works, run the sample program below. If you enter a nonzero value, the program displays the value and terminates normally. If you enter zero, the assert() macro forces abnormal program termination. The exact error message you see will depend on your compiler, but here's a typical example:

Assertion failed: x, file list19_3.c, line 13 Note that, in order for assert() to work, your program must be compiled in debug mode. Refer to your compiler documentation for information on enabling debug mode (as explained in a moment). When you later compile the final version in release mode, the assert() macros are disabled.

 int x;

 printf("\nEnter an integer value: ");
 scanf("%d", &x);

 assert(x >= 0);

 printf("You entered %d.\n", x);
 return(0);

Enter an integer value: 10

You entered 10.

Enter an integer value: -1

Error Message: Abnormal program termination

Your error message might differ, depending on your system and compiler, but the general idea is the same.

Answer 3

There are three main reasons for using the assert() function over the normal if else and printf

1. assert() function is mainly used in the debugging phase, it is tedious to write if else with a printf statement everytime you want to test a condition which might not even make its way in the final code.

2. In large software deployments , assert comes very handy where you can make the compiler ignore the assert statements using the NDEBUG macro defined before linking the header file for assert() function.

3. assert() comes handy when you are designing a function or some code and want to get an idea as to what limits the code will and not work and finally include an if else for evaluating it basically playing with assumptions.