Re: assert() taking long time

[John W. Eaton]

On 09/19/2013 10:13 AM, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso wrote:
> On Thu, 2013-09-19 at 09:35 +0200, Daniel Kraft wrote:
>
> > In C/C++, one can easily disable assertions using the preprocessor.  I
> > think it would be great if Octave could provide a similar feature, where
> > asserts could be executed or ignored depending on a switch similar to
> > debug_on_error and all those options.
>
> I like this idea. Looking forward to your patch. :-)
>
> - Jordi G. H.

Not so fast, eh?

In Octave, assert is a function just like any other.  It is perfectly 
valid for you to write a class that has an assert function, or to 
replace the default assert function with your own.  I suspect the 
overhead of calling assert is primarily about executing the code that 
makes up the argument to the assert function, then looking up the 
appropriate function to call.  Further, assert may be a variable name. 
So you can't just have the parser detect a symbol with the name assert 
and blindly turn it into a no-op.

jwe