3 ms·

Good read. > When Clang is using itself incorrectly, it makes sense to trigger an assertion and abort execution—it’s probably a sign of a bug. This statement

Good read. > When Clang is using itself incorrectly, it makes sense to trigger an assertion and abort execution—it’s probably a sign of a bug. This statement may be ambiguous. It sounds like libraries shouldn't ordinarily abort on bad usages, and it's true this is a nuanced subject, but you really do want to abort as a default. Problematic things are introducing an abort in a code path that previously worked. You have to take two steps: tracking or providing a mechanic for tracking when it happens, then aborting once you are sure it won't cause a problem. This of course doesn't apply to all ecosystems (JS for instance, due in part to diversity of environment), but this perspective is not limited to the internal behavior of clang, rather it applies largely to low level, important, potentially-system software.

otherjason 3y ago
Aborting (as in calling abort(3)) inside a library is very problematic if I’m writing an application that uses it. It takes away the ability of the larger application to detect and handle the error, simply terminating the entire process. Especially in a C++ library, something like exception throwing is better than an immediate abort, because the application can at least catch the exception and proceed. Exceptions are admittedly a controversial subject, but are easier to utilize inside potentially deeply nested call stacks where explicit error reporting would otherwise complicate the API.