Note that `assert`s are disabled if you define the macro `NDEBUG`, e.g. https://godbolt.org/z/hMWo8KM7q https://godbolt.org/z/hMWo8KM7q CMake defines the macro

Note that `assert`s are disabled if you define the macro `NDEBUG`, e.g. https://godbolt.org/z/hMWo8KM7q https://godbolt.org/z/hMWo8KM7q CMake defines the macro in release builds: https://github.com/Kitware/CMake/blob/e1eacbe2c522a8bf9a82afb483fe395140240614/Modules/Compiler/GNU.cmake#L58-L60 https://github.com/Kitware/CMake/blob/e1eacbe2c522a8bf9a82af... Would be nice to have a non-macro solution for controlling behavior at configure time, but the `NDEBUG` macro is basically already your `DEBUG` constexpr.