assert - Man Page

insert program diagnostics

Prolog

This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

Synopsis

#include <assert.h>

void assert(scalar expression);

Description

The functionality described on this reference page is aligned with the ISO C standard. Any conflict between the requirements described here and the ISO C standard is unintentional. This volume of POSIX.1-2017 defers to the ISO C standard.

The assert() macro shall insert diagnostics into programs; it shall expand to a void expression. When it is executed, if expression (which shall have a scalar type) is false (that is, compares equal to 0), assert() shall write information about the particular call that failed on stderr and shall call abort().

The information written about the call that failed shall include the text of the argument, the name of the source file, the source file line number, and the name of the enclosing function; the latter are, respectively, the values of the preprocessing macros __FILE__ and __LINE__ and of the identifier __func__.

Forcing a definition of the name NDEBUG, either from the compiler command line or with the preprocessor control statement #define NDEBUG ahead of the #include <assert.h> statement, shall stop assertions from being compiled into the program.

Return Value

The assert() macro shall not return a value.

Errors

No errors are defined.

The following sections are informative.

Examples

None.

Application Usage

None.

Rationale

None.

Future Directions

None.

See Also

abort(), stdin

The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1-2017, <assert.h>

Referenced By

assert.h(0p).

2017 IEEE/The Open Group POSIX Programmer's Manual