ASSERT(3P) POSIX Programmer's Manual ASSERT(3P)
PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the correspond-
ing Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.
NAME
assert -- insert program diagnostics
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.1-2008 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.1-2008, <assert.h>
COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information Technol-
ogy -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. (This is POSIX.1-2008 with the 2013 Technical Corrigendum 1 applied.) In the
event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Stan-
dard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.unix.org/online.html .
Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the source
files to man page format. To report such errors, see https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .
IEEE
/The Open Group 2013 ASSERT(3P)