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Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2021 11:13:55 +0200
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To: =?UTF-8?Q?Olle_H=C3=A4rstedt?= <olleharstedt@gmail.com>
Cc: Arnold Daniels <arnold.adaniels.nl@gmail.com>, internals@lists.php.net
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Why is assert limited to a debugging feature only?
From: guilliam.xavier@gmail.com (Guilliam Xavier)

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On Thu, Apr 1, 2021 at 10:50 AM Olle H=C3=A4rstedt <olleharstedt@gmail.com>
wrote:

> 2021-04-01 10:24 GMT+02:00, Arnold Daniels <arnold.adaniels.nl@gmail.com>=
:
> > Hi,
> >
> > The documentation of `assert`
> > ([
> https://php.net/assert)](https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.assert.ph=
p
> ))
> > states that's debugging only. This is further enforced by php.ini flags
> to
> > disable assertions in production.
> >
> > Why are the use cases of this feature being limited to debugging? We ca=
n
> see
> > from the popularity of user-space assertion libraries, like
> > [webmozart/asset](https://packagist.org/packages/webmozart/assert) and
> > [beberlei/assert](https://packagist.org/packages/beberlei/assert), that
> > there is a need for runtime assertions.
> >
> > [Arnold Daniels - Chat @
> > Spike](https://spikenow.com/r/a/?ref=3Dspike-organic-signature&_ts=3Dyu=
x2k)
>      [yux2k]
>
> Dunno about the motivation of the implementors, but usually assertions
> are used for internal invariants and mental checks while exceptions
> should be used for interaction with the outside world (database
> errors, user input errors etc). If you follow this, an assert error
> will never be useful for a user, it will always be an "internal
> error", and that's why it can (should?) be disabled in production.
>
> Olle
>
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> PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List
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>
>
Hi,

I agree with Olle's explanation (and am indeed using `assert()` that way).
Also note that both linked libs throw `InvalidArgumentException`
(subclasses of), so not the same kind of "assertions" (despite the name).

Regards,

--=20
Guilliam Xavier

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