Re: [PATCH v2 2/3] ci: add build checking for side-effects in assert() calls

[Taylor Blau <me@ttaylorr.com>]

On Wed, Mar 19, 2025 at 09:21:59AM -0700, Elijah Newren wrote:
> > I wonder if it might be useful to explain this in
> > Documentation/CodingGuidelines as a follow-up to this series. I was
> > thinking of a scenario where someone either writes a side-effecting
> > assert(), or a non-side-effecting one that is too complicated to prove
> > otherwise.
> >
> > If that person runs 'make test' locally, they might not see any
> > failures, but then be surprised when CI fails on the new step. It may be
> > worth mentioning that we have such a check, and that we expect all
> > assert() statements to be side effect-free, and that developers can
> > verify this by ci/check-unsafe-assertions.sh.
>
> The same could be said for coccinelle patches, hdr-check, check-pot,
> fuzz tests, asan/ubsan, GIT_TEST_SPLIT_INDEX, pedantic build, osx, vs.
> windows vs. linux, and perhaps others, which users won't catch on
> 'make test' locally but can result in failed CI builds and aren't
> mentioned in CodingGuidelines.  I usually think of CodingGuidelines as
> being the place for documenting things that can't be tested in an
> automated fashion, and a brief mention that both cross platform and
> additional more thorough but non-default tests can go in
> SubmittingPatches.

Fair enough ;-).

Thanks,
Taylor