Re: bison c++ compile

[Paul Eggert]

Akim Demaille <address@hidden> writes:

> Any reason not to use assert in these?  ISTR that the GCS don't
> recommend it, but still, that's cuter.

Well, now that you asked....

I prefer 'abort' to 'assert'.  It's too tempting for installers to
turn off assertion-checking by compiling with -DNDEBUG.  If we think
extra runtime checks are advisable, then we shouldn't let these checks
be disabled so easily.

I far prefer 'verify' to either 'abort' or 'assert', since 'verify'
has no run-time cost and nobody will want to turn it off.  But we
can't always use 'verify'.

Currently we use 'abort' almost everywhere, but use 'assert' in only a
few places.  I hope nobody would object if I removed the existing uses
of 'assert' and replaced them with 'abort'?  We can always say that
the GNU Coding Standards made us do it....