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c++static-assert

Can I disable static asserts?

I have some rather costly static_assert calls scattered throughout my code. While these are valuable, they are often superfulous and significantly contribute to compile time and memory usage.

Can I disable them?

Solution

  • Wrap them in the standard NDEBUG macro.

    #ifndef NDEBUG
static_assert(...);
#endif

    That way for release builds you can disable them just like regular assert. Although I don't really see a purpose to this.

    If you don't like wrapping up the calls in a macro, you can define a macro that does it for you:

    #ifndef STATIC_ASSERT
#ifndef NDEBUG
#define STATIC_ASSERT(...) static_assert(__VA_ARGS__)
#else
#define STATIC_ASSERT(...) static_assert(true, "")
#endif // NDEBUG
#endif // STATIC_ASSERT

    Usage is similar to a regular static_assert. Note that if your program defines a keyword and includes a standard library header then it is undefined behaviour to define a static_assert macro.