my teacher used this include in a c++ program and didn't explain it. I was curious about what it is and what it does. I was unable to find anything helpful online. just a brief mention on how it is a debugging tool. what can I use it for? should I even be curious about it?
#include <cassert>
Like all header files, it gives you access to the functions, types, and variables declared therein. (And macros, let's not forget macros since they happen to be applicable in this case.)
The header <cassert> gives you everything from the Standard C header <assert.h> but wrapped in namespace std; (This is a pattern, C++ provides <cXYZ> corresponding to each C header <XYZ.h>: <cstdlib>, <cmath>, etc.)
This documentation suggests that the only content is the single macro, assert(condition)