As noted on Wikipedia - "assertions are primarily a development tool, they are often disabled when a program is released to the public." and "Assertions should be used to document logically impossible situations and discover programming errors— if the 'impossible' occurs, then something fundamental is clearly wrong. This is distinct from error handling: most error conditions are possible, although some may be extremely unlikely to occur in practice. Using assertions as a general-purpose error handling mechanism is usually unwise: assertions do not allow for graceful recovery from errors, and an assertion failure will often halt the program's execution abruptly. Assertions also do not display a user-friendly error message."
This means that the advice given by "gk at proliberty dot com" to force assertions to be enabled, even when they have been disabled manually, goes against best practices of only using them as a development tool.
assert
(PHP 4, PHP 5)
assert — Checks if assertion is FALSE
說明
assert() will check the given
assertion and take appropriate action if
its result is FALSE.
If the assertion is given as a string it
will be evaluated as PHP code by assert().
The advantages of a string assertion are
less overhead when assertion checking is off and messages
containing the assertion expression when
an assertion fails. This means that if you pass a boolean condition
as assertion this condition will not show up as
parameter to the assertion function which you may have defined with the
assert_options() function, the condition is converted
to a string before calling that handler function, and the boolean FALSE
is converted as the empty string.
Assertions should be used as a debugging feature only. You may
use them for sanity-checks that test for conditions that should
always be TRUE and that indicate some programming errors if not
or to check for the presence of certain features like extension
functions or certain system limits and features.
Assertions should not be used for normal runtime operations like input parameter checks. As a rule of thumb your code should always be able to work correctly if assertion checking is not activated.
The behavior of assert() may be configured by assert_options() or by .ini-settings described in that functions manual page.
The assert_options() function and/or
ASSERT_CALLBACK configuration directive allow a
callback function to be set to handle failed assertions.
assert() callbacks are particularly useful for building automated test suites because they allow you to easily capture the code passed to the assertion, along with information on where the assertion was made. While this information can be captured via other methods, using assertions makes it much faster and easier!
The callback function should accept three arguments. The first
argument will contain the file the assertion failed in. The
second argument will contain the line the assertion failed on and
the third argument will contain the expression that failed (if
any — literal values such as 1 or "two" will not be passed via
this argument). Users of PHP 5.4.8 and later may also provide a fourth
optional argument, which will contain the
description given to assert(), if
it was set.
參數
-
assertion -
The assertion.
-
description -
An optional description that will be included in the failure message if the
assertionfails.
回傳值
FALSE if the assertion is false, TRUE otherwise.
更新日誌
| 版本 | 說明 |
|---|---|
| 5.4.8 |
The description parameter was added. The
description is also now provided to a callback
function in ASSERT_CALLBACK mode as the fourth
argument.
|
範例
Example #1 Handle a failed assertion with a custom handler
<?php
// Active assert and make it quiet
assert_options(ASSERT_ACTIVE, 1);
assert_options(ASSERT_WARNING, 0);
assert_options(ASSERT_QUIET_EVAL, 1);
// Create a handler function
function my_assert_handler($file, $line, $code)
{
echo "<hr>Assertion Failed:
File '$file'<br />
Line '$line'<br />
Code '$code'<br /><hr />";
}
// Set up the callback
assert_options(ASSERT_CALLBACK, 'my_assert_handler');
// Make an assertion that should fail
assert('mysql_query("")');
?>
Example #2 Using a custom handler to print a description
<?php
// Active assert and make it quiet
assert_options(ASSERT_ACTIVE, 1);
assert_options(ASSERT_WARNING, 0);
assert_options(ASSERT_QUIET_EVAL, 1);
// Create a handler function
function my_assert_handler($file, $line, $code, $desc = null)
{
echo "Assertion failed at $file:$line: $code";
if ($desc) {
echo ": $desc";
}
echo "\n";
}
// Set up the callback
assert_options(ASSERT_CALLBACK, 'my_assert_handler');
// Make an assertion that should fail
assert('2 < 1');
assert('2 < 1', 'Two is less than one');
?>
上例將輸出：
Assertion failed at test.php:21: 2 < 1 Assertion failed at test.php:22: 2 < 1: Two is less than one
add a note
User Contributed Notes 8 notes
hodgman at ali dot com dot au ¶
15 years ago
mail<at>aaron-mueller.de ¶
17 years ago
Here is a simple demonstration of Design By Contract with PHP
<?php
assert_options(ASSERT_ACTIVE, 1);
assert_options(ASSERT_WARNING, 0);
assert_options(ASSERT_BAIL, 1);
assert_options(ASSERT_CALLBACK, 'dcb_callback');
function dcb_callback($script, $line, $message) {
echo "<h1>Condition failed!</h1><br />
Script: <strong>$script</strong><br />
Line: <strong>$line</strong><br />
Condition: <br /><pre>$message</pre>";
}
// Parameters
$a = 5;
$b = 'Simple DCB with PHP';
// Pre-Condition
assert('
is_integer($a) &&
($a > 0) &&
($a < 20) &&
is_string($b) &&
(strlen($b) > 5);
');
// Function
function combine($a, $b) {
return "Kombined: " . $b . $a;
}
$result = combine($a, $b);
// Post-Condition
assert('
is_string($result) &&
(strlen($result) > 0);
');
// All right, the Function works fine
var_dump($result);
?>
Tom ¶
4 years ago
When migrating older code to PHP 7.2+, you may get E_DEPRECATED warnings for every call to assert() you ever wrote, urging you to not pass the assertion as a string.
It may be tempting to just run a regular expression across your files to convert all strings within "assert(...)" to statements. But, before you do that, be aware of the following caveat!
For example, this code simply asserts that $input is not empty.
assert('$input;');
This works, because the string passed to assert() is evaluated as a PHP statement and the result cast to Boolean.
If you want to have an equivalent statement that doesn't pass the first parameter as a string, your regular expression should rewrite this statement as:
assert((bool) ($input));
However, this looks a bit bulky and it is tempting to instead opt for the more direct approach to convert the above line to this:
assert($input);
But! This new statement will do one of three things:
1) Looks as if it worked as intended because $input just happens to be Boolean to begin with
2) Throw a parse error if $input is a string (best case)
3) Allow an attacker on a poorly configured server to execute arbitrary PHP-Code (worst case)
The reason is that, even though on PHP 7.2+ a E_DEPRECATED warning is raised, if assert() finds the first parameter to be a string, it will still execute it as PHP-Code, just as if it was called with a string to begin with.
If an attacker finds a way to manipulate the contents of $input, you might end up with a remote code execution vulnerability. So just be extra careful when migrating assertions.
Krzysztof 'ChanibaL' Bociurko ¶
16 years ago
Note that func_get_args() should be used carefully and never in a string! For example:
<?php
function asserted_normal($a, $b) {
assert(var_dump(func_get_args()));
}
function asserted_string($a, $b) {
assert('var_dump(func_get_args())');
}
?>
<?php asserted_normal(1,2) ?> prints
array(2) {
[0]=>
int(1)
[1]=>
int(2)
}
but <?php asserted_string(3,4) ?> prints
array(1) {
[0]=>
string(25) "var_dump(func_get_args())"
}
This is because of that the string passed to assert() is being evaled inside assert, and not your function. Also, note that this works correctly, because of the eval scope:
<?php
function asserted_evaled_string($a, $b) {
assert(eval('var_dump(func_get_args())'));
}
asserted_evaled_string(5,6);
?>
array(2) {
[0]=>
int(5)
[1]=>
int(6)
}
(oh, and for simplicity's sake the evaled code doesn't return true, so don't worry that it fails assertion...)
jason at jaypha dot com ¶
6 years ago
You can take advantage of how assert is handled to use it for crude conditional compilation.
For example
<?php
assert(print("Some debug message\n"));
assert(($val = "dev") || true);
?>
Since print() always returns 1, the topmost assertion will pass. For others, you may need to add a || true. Always enclose the expression in ().
In a development environment where zend.assertions=1, the above code will execute. In production environments where zend.assertions=-1, it wont even compile, thus not burdening performance.
Another, more real world, example.
<?php
$cssSrc = 'https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.2.1.min.js';
assert(($cssSrc = 'http://dev.local/jquery-3.2.1.js') || true);
echo "<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='$cssSrc'/>\n";
?>
In a production environment, The website will use the minified version from the CDN. In a development environment, a development version, sourced locally, will be used instead.
Note: This will not work for everything. Only code that can be embedded in an expression will work.
uramihsayibok, gmail, com ¶
13 years ago
There's a nice advantage to giving assert() some code to execute, as a string, rather than a simple true/false value: commenting.
<?php
assert('is_int($int) /* $int parameter must be an int, not just numeric */');
// and my personal favorite
assert('false /* not yet implemented */');
?>
The comment will show up in the output (or in your assertion handler) and doesn't require someone debugging to go through your code trying to figure out why the assertion happened. That's no excuse to not comment your code, of course.
You need to use a block comment (/*...*/) because a line comment (//...) creates an "unexpected $end" parse error in the evaluated code. Bug? Could be.
(You can get around it with "false // not yet implemented\n" but that screws up the message)
Ben ¶
7 years ago
if there was no 'warning' message when assertion failed (FALSE), try reset the error handler:
<?php
set_error_handler ( null );
office dot stojmenovic at gmail dot com ¶
10 years ago
Example from Ikac Framework how they use assert()
<?php
/**
* Set Assertion Debug
*
* This method will check the given assertion and take appropriate -
* action if its result is FALSE.
*
* This file is part of Ikac Framework.
*
* @package Ikac Framework
* @author Ivan Stojmenovic Ikac <contact.@stojmenovic.info>
*
* @param mixed $assertion The assertion.
* @param mixed $callback Callback to call on failed assertions
* @param array $options Set the various control options or just query their current settings.
* @param string $description An optional description that will be included in the failure message if the assertion fails.
*/
public function setAssertionDebug($assertion, $callback, array $options, $description = null)
{
if (is_array($options)) {
foreach ($options AS $option => $value) {
assert_options($option, $value);
}
}
if ($callback) {
assert_options(ASSERT_CALLBACK, $callback);
}
return assert($assertion, $description);
}
?>
How to use:
<?php
use Ikac\Component\SystemBehaviour\OptionsInfo;
$system = new OptionsInfo();
$option = array(ASSERT_ACTIVE => 1,ASSERT_WARNING => 0,ASSERT_QUIET_EVAL => 1);
$system->setAssertionDebug('2<1', function(){
echo "Assertion failed";
}, $option);
?>
