Re: is assert() an appropriate substitute for return -1?

[Pablo Neira Ayuso <pablo@netfilter.org>]

On 24/03/11 19:23, Sam Roberts wrote:
>  From libnfnetlink.c:
>
>
>   * On success, 0 is returned. On error, -1 is returned and errno is set
>   * appropiately.
>   */
> int nfnl_callback_register(struct nfnl_subsys_handle *ssh,
>                             u_int8_t type, struct nfnl_callback *cb)
> {
>          assert(ssh);
>          assert(cb);
>
>          if (type>= ssh->cb_count) {
>                  errno = EINVAL;
>                  return -1;
>          }
>
> The docs say return -1, the code asserts on two arg checks, and
> returns an error for the third.
>
> I found this behaviour when calling nfct_callback_register() on a
> handle that was opened with the EXPECT subsystem.
>
> It appears to be the prevalent convention in the code, but I'm binding
> the nfct APIs into lua, and would like users of the scripting language
> to not have abort()ions on misuse of the API.
>
> I'm not super-keen on checking in my binding code all the conditions
> in underlying asserts. And there is no public nfct API to determine
> what subsystem the handle was opened on, anyhow, so I can't easily
> check.
>
> Is it worth supplying patches?

I read once in the manpages that you can disable assert() macro with NDEBUG.

Is that enough for you?