Question

I want to use a template for some data processing, but I need the code to be more or less safe when ported.

This might be a problem if sizes of variables grow beyond anticipated values, so I would like to assert at compile time that some assumptions are still valid.

For example, sizeof(long)>sizeof(int), so that if this assumption fails, I could break the build.

I know that standard mandates that long>=int, but this is just an example, don’t concentrate on the variable types.

Answer 1

C++11 has static_assert:

static_assert(sizeof(long) > sizeof(int), "long must be greater than int");

On older compilers you can use Boost.StaticAssert.

BOOST_STATIC_ASSERT(sizeof(long) > sizeof(int));