Re: Bison torture test speedup: `assert (x);' -> `if (! (x)) abort ();'

[Akim Demaille]

| Bison's "make check" was taking too long for me, so I installed the
| following patch to speed up the slowest test by a factor of 10.
| "make check" still takes too long, but it's progress.
| 
| 2002-11-09  Paul Eggert  <address@hidden>
| 
|       * tests/torture.at (AT_DATA_TRIANGULAR_GRAMMAR,
|       AT_DATA_HORIZONTAL_GRAMMAR, AT_DATA_LOOKAHEADS_GRAMMAR,
|       AT_DATA_STACK_TORTURE): Replace `assert (x);' with `if (! (x))
|       abort ();'.  This reduces the runtime of the "Many lookaheads"
|       test from 27.6 to 2.7 minutes on a 440 MHz Ultrasparc III running
|       GCC 3.2.

Err...  This is shocking!  What is the difference between assert and if/abort???