Assertless Production Code

Assertless Production Code

Not everyone likes assertions, and coincidentally some people wear sweaters with reindeer on them. If you want to compile out all of the assertions from the production code, you can use this:

   #define yassert(cond)  // nothing

But this is not perfect, and has an insidious bug that occurs rarely (if you forget the semicolon). A more professional version is to use “0” and this works by itself, but even better is a “0” that has been typecast to type “void” so it cannot be accidentally used in any expression:

    #define yassert(cond) ( (void)0 )

The method to remove calls to the yassert variadic macro version uses the “...” token:

    #define yassert(cond, ...) ( (void)0 )

Personally, I don't recommend doing this at all, as I think that assertions should be left in the production code for improved supportability. I mean, come on, recycle and reuse, remember? Far too many perfectly good assertions get sent to landfill every year.