Home/ Questions/Q 8975711
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-06-15T18:56:58+00:00

Take the following example: public void Foo() { //Code… Debug.Assert(ExpensiveTest()); //Code… } What happens

  • 0

Take the following example:

public void Foo()
{
    //Code...

    Debug.Assert(ExpensiveTest());

    //Code...
}

What happens to the the Debug.Assert method when I compile in release mode? Would ExpensiveTest() still run? If not, then how does it work (since it is not a macro that can be set to evaluate to nothing)? If it does run, then doesn’t that defeat the purpose of debug assertions?

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    What happens to the the Debug.Assert method when I compile in release mode?

    It’s completely removed (including the call to ExpensiveTest), assuming you don’t have the DEBUG conditional compilation symbol defined in your release configuration.

    If you look at the documentation, the declaration uses [ConditionalAttribute("DEBUG")]:

    [ConditionalAttribute("DEBUG")]
public static void Assert(
    bool condition
)

    ConditionalAttribute is used for conditional compilation. See Bart de Smet’s blog post on conditional compilation for more details, along with section 17.4.2 of the C# 4 specification.

    • 0