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Concept
Assertion (software development)
Summary
In computer programming, specifically when using the imperative programming paradigm, an assertion is a predicate (a Boolean-valued function over the state space, usually expressed as a logical proposition using the variables of a program) connected to a point in the program, that always should evaluate to true at that point in code execution. Assertions can help a programmer read the code, help a compiler compile it, or help the program detect its own defects.
For the latter, some programs check assertions by actually evaluating the predicate as they run. Then, if it is not in fact true – an assertion failure – the program considers itself to be broken and typically deliberately crashes or throws an assertion failure exception.
The following code contains two assertions, x > 0 and x > 1, and they are indeed true at the indicated points during execution:
x = 1;
assert x > 0;
x++;
assert x > 1;
Programmers can use assertions to help specify programs and to reason about program correctness. For example, a precondition—an assertion placed at the beginning of a section of code—determines the set of states under which the programmer expects the code to execute. A postcondition—placed at the end—describes the expected state at the end of execution. For example: x > 0 { x++ } x > 1.
The example above uses the notation for including assertions used by C. A. R. Hoare in his 1969 article. That notation cannot be used in existing mainstream programming languages. However, programmers can include unchecked assertions using the comment feature of their programming language. For example, in C:
x = 5;
x = x + 1;
// {x > 1}
The braces included in the comment help distinguish this use of a comment from other uses.
Libraries may provide assertion features as well. For example, in C using glibc with C99 support:
#include
int f(void)
{
int x = 5;
x = x + 1;
assert(x > 1);
}
Several modern programming languages include checked assertions – statements that are checked at runtime or sometimes statically.
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