SDL_assert_release(3)

✨ NAME ✨

SDL_assert_release — the assertion test that still shows up even in release builds, bestie. yes, in release. it's giving main character energy and it refuses to be ignored 💅

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

#include <SDL3/SDL_assert.h>

#define SDL_assert_release(condition) SDL_disabled_assert(condition)

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

okay so here's the tea 🫖 — this macro is enabled when SDL_ASSERT_LEVEL is >= 1, and disabled otherwise. that's the whole vibe check.

it's meant for tests that are cheap to make and extremely unlikely to fail. like, lowkey rare-rare. because generally it is frowned upon to have an assertion failure in a release build 😭 so if there's any chance your assert might actually trigger, it needs to be of more than life-and-death importance. fr fr. and honestly? you should almost always consider handling these cases more gracefully than an assert even allows. periodt.

now, when assertions are disabled, this wraps condition in a sizeof operator. what does that mean for you, babe? it means any function calls and side effects will not run 🚫 — but the compiler will not complain about any otherwise-unused variables that are only referenced in the assertion. iconic, no notes ✨

and you can set the environment variable "SDL_ASSERT" to one of several strings — "abort", "break", "retry", "ignore", "always_ignore" — to force a default behavior. that's super desirable for automation purposes 🤖. also: if your platform requires GUI interfaces to happen on the main thread but you're debugging an assertion in a background thread, it might be desirable to set this to "break" so that your debugger takes control as soon as assert is triggered, instead of risking a bad UI interaction (deadlock, etc) in the application. *

that trailing * is literally in the original page, bestie. i'm not making it up, i'm just not touching it 🙈

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🎀 MACRO PARAMETERS 🎀

• condition — boolean value to test. that's it. that's the girl. 👑

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🧚 THREAD SAFETY 🧚

it is safe to call this macro from any thread. no cap, no locks, no drama. 🌈

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⭐ AVAILABILITY ⭐

this macro is available since SDL 3.2.0. she's new-ish, she's fresh, she's thriving 💜

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! this little cutie came to you courtesy of the fine folks at Simple Directmedia Layer, and it's living in the SDL 3.4.18 era — go forth and assert responsibly, mwah 💅✨🎀