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“It is absurd to make elaborate security checks on debugging runs, when no trust is put in the results, and then remove them in production runs, when an erroneous result could be expensive or disastrous. What would we think of a sailing enthusiast who wears his life-jacket when training on dry land but takes it off as soon as he goes to sea?”
-- Charles Antony Richard Hoare (see [Hoare73])
This section gives an overview of contract programming (see [Meyer97], [Mitchell02], and [N1613] for more extensive introductions to contract programming). Readers that already have a basic understanding of contract programming can skip this section and maybe come back to it after reading the Tutorial.
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The objective of this library is not to convince programmers to use contract programming. It is assumed that programmes understand the benefits and trade-offs associated with contract programming and they have already decided to use this methodology in their code. Then, this library aims to be the best and more complete contract programming library for C++ (without using programs and tools external to the C++ language and its preprocessor). |
Contract programming is characterized by the following assertion mechanisms:
The actual function implementation code, that remains outside of these contract assertions, is often referred to as the function body in contract programming.
Class invariants can also be used to specify basic exception safety guarantees for an object (because they are checked at exit of public functions even when those throw exceptions). Contract assertions for exception guarantees can be used to specify strong exception safety guarantees for a given operation on the same object.
It is also a common requirement for contract programming to automatically disable contract checking while already checking assertions from another contract (in order to avoid infinite recursion while checking contract assertions).
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This library implements this requirement but in order to globally disable
assertions while checking another assertion some kind of global arbitrating
variable needs to be used by this library implementation. This library
will automatically protect such a global variable from race conditions
in multi-threated programs, but this will effectively introduce a global
lock in the program (the |
In general, it is recommended to specify different contract conditions using
separate assertion statements and not to group them together into a single
condition using logical operators (&&
,
||
, etc.). This is because when
contract conditions are programmed together in a single assertion using logical
operators, it might not be clear which condition actually failed in case
the entire assertion fails at run-time.
A limited form of contract programming (typically some form of precondition
and basic postcondition checking) can be achieved using the C-style assert
macro. Using assert
is common practice for many programmers but it suffers of the following limitations:
assert
does not distinguish
between preconditions and postconditions. In well-tested production code,
postconditions can usually be disabled trusting the correctness of the
implementation while preconditions might still need to remain enabled
because of possible changes in the calling code (e.g., postconditions
of a given library could be disabled after testing while keeping the
library preconditions enabled given that future changes in the user code
that calls the library cannot be anticipated). Using assert
it is not possible to selectively disable only postconditions and all
assertions must be disabled at once.
assert
requires to manually
program extra code to correctly check postconditions (specifically to
handle functions with multiple return statements, to not check postconditions
when functions throw exceptions, and to implement old values).
assert
requires to manually
program extra code to check class invariants (extra member functions,
try blocks, etc.).
assert
does not support
subcontracting.
assert
calls are usually
scattered within function implementations thus the asserted conditions
are not immediately visible in their entirety by programmers (as they
are instead when the assertions appear in the function declaration or
at least at the very top of the function definition).
Contract programming does not suffer of these limitations.
The main use of contract programming is to improve software quality. [Meyer97] discusses how contract programming can be used as the basic tool to write “correct” software. [Stroustrup94] discusses the key importance of class invariants plus advantages and disadvantages of preconditions and postconditions.
The following is a short summary of benefits associated with contract programming inspired mainly by [N1613]:
Of course, not all formal contract specifications can be asserted in C++.
For example, in C++ is it not possible to assert the validity of an iterator
range in the general case (because the only way to check if two iterators
form a valid range is to keep incrementing the first iterator until it reaches
the second iterator, but if the iterator range is invalid then such a code
would render undefined behaviour or run forever instead of failing an assertion).
Nevertheless, a large amount of contract assertions can be successfully programmed
in C++ as illustrated by the numerous examples in this documentation and
from the literature (for example see how much of STL vector
contract assertions can actually
be programmed in C++ using this library).
In general, contract programming benefits come at the cost of performance as discussed in detail by both [Stroustrup94] and [Meyer97]. While performance trade-offs should be carefully considered depending on the specific application domain, software quality cannot be sacrificed: It is difficult to see value in software that quickly and efficiently provides incorrect results.
The run-time performances are negatively impacted by contract programming mainly because of extra time require to:
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In general, contracts introduce at least three extra functor calls to check preconditions, postconditions, and exception guarantees for any given non-member function call. Public functions introduce also two more function calls to check class invariants (at entry and at exit). For subcontracting, these extra calls (some of which become virtual calls) are repeated for the number of functions being overridden from the base classes (possibly deep in the inheritance tree). In addition to that, this library introduces a number of function calls internal to its implementation in order to properly check the contracts. |
To mitigate the run-time performance impact, programmers can selectively disable run-time checking of some of the contract assertions. Programmers will have to decide based on the performance trade-offs required by their specific applications, but a reasonable approach often is to (see Disable Contract Checking):
This approach is usually reasonable because in well-tested production code, validating the function body implementation using postconditions is rarely needed since the function has shown itself to be “correct” during testing. On the other hand, checking function arguments using preconditions is always needed because of changes that can be made to the calling code (without having to necessarily re-test and re-release the called code). Furthermore, postconditions and also exception guarantees, with related old value copies, are often computationally more expensive to check than preconditions and class invariants.
A call to a non-member function with a contract executes the following steps
(see boost::contract::function
):
Private and protected functions do not have to satisfy class invariants because these functions are part of the class implementation and not of the class public interface. Furthermore, the substitution principle does not apply to private and protected functions because these functions are not accessible to the user at the calling site where the substitution principle applies.
Therefore, calls to private and protected functions with contracts execute the same steps as the ones indicated above for non-member functions (checking only preconditions and postconditions, without checking class invariants and without subcontracting).
Let's consider a public function in a derived class that overrides public virtual functions declared by its public base classes (because of C++ multiple inheritance, the function could override from more than one of its base classes). We refer to the function in the derived class as the overriding function, and to the set of base classes containing all the overridden functions as overridden bases.
When subcontracting, overridden functions are searched (at compile-time) deeply in all public branches of the inheritance tree (i.e., not just the derived class' direct public parents are inspected, but also all its public grandparents, etc.). In case of multiple inheritance, this search also extends (at compile-time) widely to all public trees of the multiple inheritance forest (multiple public base classes are searched following their order of declaration in the derived class' inheritance list). As usual with C++ multiple inheritance, this search could result in multiple overridden functions and therefore in subcontracting from multiple public base classes. Note that only public base classes are considered for subcontracting because private and protected base classes are not accessible to the user at the calling site where the substitution principle applies.
A call to the overriding public function with a contract executes the following
steps (see boost::contract::public_function
):
AND
non-static class invariants for all overridden bases, AND
then check the derived class static AND
non-static invariants.
OR
with each other, OR
else check the overriding function preconditions in the derived class.
AND
non-static class invariants for all overridden bases, AND
then check the derived class static AND
non-static invariants (even if the body threw an exception).
AND
with each other, AND
then check the overriding function postconditions in the derived class.
AND
with each other, AND
then check the overriding function exception guarantees in the derived
class.
Volatile public functions check static class invariants AND
volatile class invariants instead. Preconditions and postconditions of volatile
public functions and volatile class invariants access the object as volatile
.
Class invariants are checked before preconditions and postconditions so programming precondition and postcondition assertions can be simplified assuming that class invariants are satisfied already (e.g., if class invariants assert that a pointer cannot be null then preconditions and postconditions can safety dereference that pointer without additional checking). Similarly, static class invariants are checked before non-static class invariants so programming non-static class invariant (volatile and non) can be simplified assuming that static class invariants are satisfied already. Furthermore, subcontracting checks contracts of public base classes before checking the derived class contracts so programming derived class contract assertions can be simplified by assuming that public base class contracts are satisfied already.
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In this documentation
As indicated by the steps above and in accordance with the substitution
principle, subcontracting checks preconditions in |
A call to a non-static public function with a contract (that does not override
functions from any of its public base classes) executes the following steps
(see boost::contract::public_function
):
AND
non-static invariants (but none of the invariants from base classes).
AND
non-static invariants (even if the body threw an exception, but none
of the invariants from base classes).
Volatile public functions check static class invariants AND
volatile class invariants instead. Preconditions and postconditions of volatile
functions and volatile class invariants access the object as volatile
.
Class invariants are checked because this function is part of the class public interface. However, none of the contracts of the base classes are checked because this function does not override any functions from any of the public base classes (so the substitution principle does not require to subcontract in this case).
A call to a static public function with a contract executes the following
steps (see boost::contract::public_function
):
Class invariants are checked because this function is part of the class public interface, but only static class invariants can be checked (because this is a static function so it cannot access the object that would instead be required to check non-static class invariants, volatile or not). Furthermore, static functions cannot override any function so the substitution principle does not apply and they do not subcontract.
Preconditions and postconditions of static functions and static class invariants
cannot access the object (because they are checked from static
member functions).
A call to a constructor with a contract executes the following steps (see
boost::contract::constructor_precondition
and boost::contract::constructor
):
AND
volatile class invariants (because the object is now successfully
constructed).
oldof
(*this)
because the object was not constructed
before the execution of the constructor body).
oldof
(*this)
because the object was not constructed
before the execution of the constructor body, plus they can only access
class' static members because the object has not been successfully constructed
given the constructor body threw an exception in this case).
Constructor preconditions are checked before executing the member initialization list so programming these initializations can be simplified assuming the constructor preconditions are satisfied (e.g., constructor arguments can be validated by the constructor preconditions before they are used to initialize base classes and data members).
As indicated in step 2.a. above, C++ object construction mechanism will automatically check base class contracts when these bases are initialized (no explicit subcontracting behaviour is required here).
A call to a destructor with a contract executes the following steps (see
boost::contract::destructor
):
AND
non-static AND
volatile class invariants.
oldof
(*this)
because the object has been destroyed
after successful execution of the destructor body). [11]
AND
volatile class invariants (because the object was not successfully
destructed so it still exists and should satisfy its invariants).
As indicated in step 4.b. above, C++ object destruction mechanism will automatically check base class contracts when the destructor exits without throwing an exception (no explicit subcontracting behaviour is required here).
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Given that C++ allows destructors to throw, this library handles the case
when the destructor body throws an exception as indicated above. However,
in order to comply with STL exception safety guarantees and good C++ programming
practices, programmers should implement destructor bodies to rarely, if
ever, throw exceptions (in fact destructors are implicitly declared |
Contracts should not be allowed to modify the program state because they
are only responsible to check (and not to change) the program state in order
to verify its compliance with the specifications. Therefore, contracts should
only access objects, function arguments, function return values, old values,
and all other program variables in const
context (via const&
,
const*
const
, const
volatile
, etc.).
Whenever possible (e.g., class invariants and postcondition old values),
this library automatically enforces this constant-correctness constraint
at compile-time using const
.
However, this library cannot automatically enforce this constraint in all
cases (for preconditions and postconditions of mutable member functions,
for global variables, etc.). See No
Lambda Functions for ways of using this library that enforce the constant-correctness
constraint at compile-time (but at the cost of significant boiler-plate code
to be programmed manually so not recommended in general).
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In general, it is the responsibility of the programmers to code assertions that only check, and do not change, program variables. [12] |
Contracts are part of the program specification and not of its implementation. Therefore, contracts should ideally be programmed within C++ declarations, and not within definitions.
In general, this library cannot satisfy this requirement. However, even when contracts are programmed together with the body in the function definition, it is still fairly easy for users to identify and read just the contract portion of the function definition (because the contract code must always be programmed at the very top of the function definition). See Separate Body Implementation for ways of using this library to program contract specifications outside of the body implementation (but at the cost of writing one extra function for any given function so not recommended in general).
Furthermore, contracts are most useful when they assert conditions only using
public members (in most cases, the need for using non-public members to check
contracts, especially in preconditions, indicates an error in the class design).
For example, the caller of a public function cannot in general make sure
that the function preconditions are satisfied if the precondition assertions
use private members that are not callable by the caller (therefore, a failure
in the preconditions will not necessarily indicate a bug in the caller given
that the caller was made unable to fully check the preconditions in the first
place). However, given that C++ provides programmers ways around access level
restrictions (friend
, function
pointers, etc.), this library leaves it up to programmers to make sure that
only public members are used in contract assertions (especially in preconditions).
([N1962] follows the same approach not
restricting contracts to only use public members, Eiffel instead generates
a compile-time error if preconditions are asserted using non-public members.)
[13]
If preconditions, postconditions, exception guarantees, or class invariants are either checked to be false or their evaluation throws an exception at run-time then this library will call specific failure handler functions. [14]
By default, these failure handler functions print a message to the standard
error std::cerr
(with detailed information about the
failure) and then terminate the program calling std::terminate
.
However, using boost::contract::set_precondition_failure
,
boost::contract::set_postcondition_failure
,
boost::contract::set_except_failure
,
boost::contract::set_invariant_failure
,
etc. programmers can define their own failure handler functions that can
take any user-specified action (throw an exception, exit the program with
an error code, etc., see Throw
on Failures). [15]
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In C++ there are a number of issues with programming contract failure handlers
that throw exceptions instead of terminating the program. Specifically,
destructors check class invariants so they will throw if programmers change
class invariant failure handlers to throw instead of terminating the program,
but in general destructors should not throw in C++ (to comply with STL
exception safety, C++11 implicit |
Therefore, it is recommended to terminate the program at least for contract failures from destructors and exception guarantees (if not in all other cases of contract failures as it is done by default by this library). The contract failure handler functions programmed using this library have information about the failed contract (preconditions, postconditions, etc.) and the operation that was checking the contract (constructor, destructor, etc.) so programmers can granularly distinguish all cases and decide when it is appropriate to terminate, throw, or take some other user-specific action.
The contract programming features supported by this library are largely based on [N1962] and on the Eiffel programming language.
The following table compares contract programming features among this library, [N1962] (unfortunately the C++ standard committee rejected this proposal commenting on a lack of interest in adding contract programming to C++ at that time, even if [N1962] itself is sound), a more recent proposal [P0380] (which was accepted in the C++20 standard but unfortunately only supports preconditions and postconditions, while does not support class invariants, old values, and subcontracting), the Eiffel and D programming languages. Some of the items listed in this summary table will become clear in detail after reading the remaining sections of this documentation.
Feature |
This Library |
[N1962] Proposal (not accepted in C++) |
C++20 (see [P0380]) |
ISE Eiffel 5.4 (see [Meyer97]) |
D (see [Bright04]) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Keywords and specifiers |
Specifiers: |
Keywords: |
Attributes: |
Keywords: |
Keywords: |
On contract failures |
Print an error to |
Call |
Call |
Throw exceptions. |
Throw exceptions. |
Return values in postconditions |
Yes, captured by or passed as a parameter to (for virtual functions) the postcondition functor. |
Yes, |
Yes, |
Yes, |
Yes, |
Old values in postconditions |
Yes, |
Yes, |
No. |
Yes, |
No. |
Class invariants |
Yes, checked at constructor exit, at destructor entry and throw,
and at public function entry, exit, and throw. Same for volatile
class invariants. Static class invariants checked at entry, exit,
and throw for constructors, destructors, and any (also |
Yes, checked at constructor exit, at destructor entry and throw, and at public function entry, exit, and throw. (Volatile and static class invariants not supported.) |
No. |
Yes, checked at constructor exit, and around public functions. (Volatile and static class invariants do not apply to Eiffel.) |
Yes, checked at constructor exit, at destructor entry, and around
public functions. However, invariants cannot call public functions
(to avoid infinite recursion because D does not disable contracts
while checking other contracts). (Volatile and static class invariants
not supported, |
Subcontracting |
Yes, also supports subcontracting for multiple inheritance ( |
Yes, also supports subcontracting for multiple inheritance, but preconditions cannot be subcontracted. [a] |
No. |
Yes. |
Yes. |
Contracts for pure virtual functions |
Yes (programmed via out-of-line functions as always in C++ with pure virtual function definitions). |
Yes. |
No (because no subcontracting). |
Yes (contracts for abstract functions). |
No. |
Arbitrary code in contracts |
Yes (but users are generally recommended to only program assertions
using |
No, assertions only (use of only public functions to program preconditions is recommended but not prescribed). |
No, assertions only (in addition contracts of public, protected, and private members can only use other public, public/protected, and public/protected/private members respectively). |
No, assertions only (in addition only public members can be used in preconditions). |
Yes. |
Constant-correctness |
No, enforced only for class invariants and old values (making also preconditions and postconditions constant-correct is possible but requires users to program a fare amount of boiler-plate code). |
Yes. |
Yes (side effects in contracts lead to undefined behaviour). |
Yes. |
No, enforced only for class invariants. |
Contracts in specifications |
No, in function definitions instead (unless programmers manually write an extra function for any given function). |
Yes (in function declarations). |
Yes (in function declarations). |
Yes. |
Yes. |
Function code ordering |
Preconditions, postconditions, exception guarantees, body. |
Preconditions, postconditions, body. |
Preconditions, postconditions, body. |
Preconditions, body, postconditions. |
Preconditions, postconditions, body. |
Disable assertion checking within assertions checking (to avoid infinite recursion when checking contracts) |
Yes, but use |
Yes for class invariants and postconditions, but preconditions disable no assertion. |
No. |
Yes. |
No. |
Nested member function calls |
Disable nothing. [c] |
Disable nothing. |
Disable nothing. |
Disable all contract assertions. |
Disable nothing. |
Disable contract checking |
Yes, contract checking can be skipped at run-time by defining combinations
of the |
Yes (contract code also removed from compiled object code, but details are compiler-implementation specific). |
Yes (contract code also removed from compiled object code, but details are compiler-implementation specific). |
Yes, but only predefined combinations of preconditions, postconditions, and class invariants can be disabled (contract code also removed from compiled object code). |
Yes. |
Assertion levels |
Yes, predefined default, audit, and axiom, in addition programmers can also define their own levels. |
No (but a previous revision of this proposal considered adding assertion levels under the name of "assertion ordering"). |
Yes, predefined default, audit, and axiom. |
No. |
No. |
[a]
Rationale: The authors of [N1962] decided to forbid derived
classes from subcontracting preconditions because they found
that such a feature was rarely, if ever, used (see Re:
[boost] [contract] diff n1962). Still, it should be noted
that even in [N1962] if a
derived class overrides two functions with preconditions coming
from two different base classes via multiple inheritance, the
overriding function contract will check preconditions from its
two base class functions in [b]
Rationale: Technically, it can
be shown that an invalid argument can reach the function body
when assertion checking is disabled while checking preconditions
(that is why [N1962] does
not disable any assertion while checking preconditions, see
Re:
[boost] [contract] diff n1962). However, this can only
happen while checking contracts when an invalid argument passed
to the body, which should results in the body either throwing
an exception or returning an incorrect result, will in turn fail
the contract assertion being checked by the caller of the body
and invoke the related contract failure handler as desired in
the first place. Furthermore, not disabling assertions while
checking preconditions (like [N1962]
does) makes it possible to have infinite recursion while checking
preconditions. Therefore, this library by default disables assertion
checking also while checking preconditions (like Eiffel does),
but it also provides the [c] Rationale: Older versions of this library defined a data member in the user class that was automatically used to disable checking of class invariants within nested member function calls (similarly to Eiffel). This feature was required by older revisions of [N1962] but it is no longer required by [N1962] (because it seems to be motivated purely by optimization reasons while similar performances can be achieved by disabling invariants for release builds). Furthermore, in multi-threaded programs this feature would introduce a lock that synchronizes all member functions calls for a given object. Therefore, this feature was removed in the current revision of this library. |
The authors of this library consulted the following references that implement contract programming for C++ (but usually for only a limited set of features, or using preprocessing tools other than the C++ preprocessor and external to the language itself) and for other languages (see Bibliography for a complete list of all references consulted during the design and development of this library):
Reference |
Language |
Notes |
---|---|---|
Digital Mars C++ |
The Digital Mars C++ compiler extends C++ adding contract programming language support (among many other features). |
|
C++ |
This supports contract programming including subcontracting but with limitations (e.g., programmers need to manually build an inheritance tree using artificial template parameters), it does not use macros but programmers are required to write by hand a significant amount of boiler-plate code. (The authors have found this work very inspiring when developing initial revisions of this library especially for its attempt to support subcontracting.) |
|
C++ |
This supports class invariants and old values but it does not support subcontracting (contracts are specified within definitions instead of declarations and assertions are not constant-correct). |
|
C++ |
Interestingly, these contract macros automatically generate Doxygen documentation [a] but old values, class invariants, and subcontracting are not supported (plus contracts are specified within definitions instead of declarations and assertions are not constant-correct). |
|
GCC C++ |
This uses macros but it only works on GCC (and maybe Clang, but
it does not work on MSVC, etc.). It does not support subcontracting.
It requires extra care to program postconditions for functions
with multiple return statements. It seems that it might not check
class invariants when functions throw exceptions (unless the |
|
C++ |
This uses an external preprocessing tool (the authors could no longer find this project's code to evaluate it). |
|
Java |
This uses an external preprocessing tool. |
|
Java |
This uses an external preprocessing tool. |
|
.NET |
Microsoft contract programming for .NET programming languages. |
|
C# |
This is a C# extension with contract programming language support. |
|
Object Pascal |
This is the .NET version of Object Pascal and it has language support for contract programming. |
|
Ada |
This is an Ada-like programming language with support for contract programming. |
|
[a] Rationale: Older versions of this library also automatically generated Doxygen documentation from contract definition macros. This functionality was abandoned for a number of reasons: This library no longer uses macros to program contracts; even before that, the implementation of this library macros became too complex and the Doxygen preprocessor was no longer able to expand them; the Doxygen documentation was just a repeat of the contract code (so programmers could directly look at contracts in the source code); Doxygen might not necessarily be the documentation tool used by all C++ programmers. |
To the best knowledge of the authors, this the only library that fully supports all contract programming features for C++ (without using preprocessing tools external to the language itself). In general:
[6] The nomenclature of wide and narrow contracts has gained some popularity in recent years in the C++ community (appearing in a number of more recent proposals to add contract programming to the C++ standard, see Bibliography). This nomenclature is perfectly reasonable but it is not often used in this document just because the authors usually prefer to explicitly say "this operation has no preconditions..." or "this operation has preconditions..." (this is just a matter of taste).
[7] Rationale: Contract assertions for exception guarantees were first introduced by this library, they are not part of [N1962] or other references listed in the Bibliography (even if exception safety guarantees have long been part of C++ STL documentation).
[8] Rationale: Static and volatile class invariants were first introduced by this library (simply to reflect the fact that C++ supports also static and volatile public functions), they are not part of [N1962] or other references listed in the Bibliography.
[9]
Rationale: BOOST_CONTRACT_DISABLE_THREADS
is named after BOOST_DISABLE_THREADS
.
[10] Of course, if contracts are ill-written then contract programming is of little use. However, it is less likely to have a bug in both the function body and the contract than in the function body alone. For example, consider the validation of a result in postconditions. Validating the return value might seem redundant, but in this case we actually want that redundancy. When programmers write a function, there is a certain probability that they make a mistake in implementing the function body. When programmers specify the result of the function in the postconditions, there is also a certain probability that they make a mistake in writing the contract. However, the probability that programmers make a mistake twice (in both the body and the contract) is in general lower than the probability that the mistake is made only once (in either the body or the contract).
[11]
Rationale: Postconditions for
destructors are not part of [N1962]
or other references listed in the Bibliography
(but with respect to [Meyer97]
it should be noted that Eiffel does not support static data members
and that might by why destructors do not have postconditions
in Eiffel). However, in principle there could be uses for destructor
postconditions so this library supports postconditions for destructors
(e.g., a class that counts object instances could use destructor
postconditions to assert that an instance counter stored in a
static data member is decreased by 1
because the object has been destructed).
[12]
Note that this is true when using C-style assert
as well.
[13] Rationale: Out of curiosity, if C++ defect 45 had not been fixed, this library could have been implemented to generate a compile-time error when precondition assertions use non-public members more similarly to Eiffel's implementation (but still, not necessary the best approach for C++).
[14] Rationale: If the evaluation of a contract assertion throws an exception, the assertion cannot be checked to be true so the only safe thing to assume is that the assertion failed (indeed the contract assertion checking failed) and call the contract failure handler in this case also.
[15]
Rationale: This customizable failure handling
mechanism is similar to the one used by C++ std::terminate
and also to the one proposed in [N1962].
[16] For example, the following pseudocode attempts to emulate old values in [P0380]:
struct scope_exit { // RAII. template<typename F> explicit scope_exit(F f) : f_(f) {} ~scope_exit() { f_(); } scope_exit(scope_exit const&) = delete; scope_exit& operator=(scope_exit const&) = delete; private: std::function<void ()> f_; }; void fswap(file& x, file& y) [[expects: x.closed()]] [[expects: y.closed()]] // Cannot use [[ensures]] for postconditions so to emulate old values. { file old_x = x; // Emulate old values with local copies (not disabled). file old_y = y; scope_exit ensures([&] { // Check after local objects destroyed. if(std::uncaught_exceptions() == 0) { // Check only if no throw. [[assert: x.closed()]] [[assert: y.closed()]] [[assert: x == old_y]] [[assert: y == old_x]] } }); x.open(); scope_exit close_x([&] { x.close(); }); y.open(); scope_exit close_y([&] { y.close(); }); file z = file::temp(); z.open; scope_exit close_z([&] { z.close(); }); x.mv(z); y.mv(x); z.mv(y); }
This requires boiler-plate code to make sure postconditions are correctly
checked only if the function did not throw an exception and in a scope_exit
RAII object after all
other local objects have been destroyed (because some of these destructors
contribute to establishing the postconditions). Still, it never disables
old value copies (not even if postconditions are disabled in release
builds, this would require adding even more boiler-plate code using
#ifdef
, etc.).
[17] For example, the following pseudocode attempts to emulation of class invariants in [P0380]:
template<typename T> class vector { bool invariant() const { // Check invariants at... [[assert: empty() == (size() == 0)]] [[assert: size() <= capacity()]] return true; } public: vector() [[ensures: invariant()]] // ...constructor exit (only if no throw). { ... } ~vector() noexcept [[expects: invariant()]] // ...destructor entry. { ... } void push_back(T const& value) [[expects: invariant()]] // ...public function entry. [[ensures: invariant()]] // ...public function exit (if no throw). try { ... // Function body. } catch(...) { invariant(); // ...public function exit (if throw). throw; } ... };
This requires boiler-plate code to manually invoke the function that
checks the invariants (note that invariants are checked at public function
exit regardless of exceptions being thrown while postconditions are
not). In case the destructor can throw (e.g., it is declared noexcept(false)
),
the destructor also requires a try-catch
statement similar to the one programmed for push_back
to check class invariants at destructor exit when it throws exceptions.
Still, an outstanding issue remains to avoid infinite recursion if
also empty
and size
are public functions programmed
to check class invariants (because [P0380]
does not automatically disable assertions while checking other assertions).