From: John Maddock (john_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-04-07 05:17:17
> Well, code like this doesn't trigger a warning when compiled with g++
>
> $ cat trial.cpp
> #include <cassert>
>
> int foo(bool a) {
> if (a)
> return 0;
> assert(false);
> }
>
> $ g++ -W -Wall -c trial.cpp
>
> Compare that with:
>
> $ g++ -DNDEBUG -W -Wall -c trial.cpp
> trial.cpp: In function `int foo(bool)':
> trial.cpp:7: warning: control reaches end of non-void function
>
> Clearly, the compiler is able to ascertain that execution won't proceed
> past the assert. It doesn't seem so unreasonable to hope that
> BOOST_STATIC_ASSERT would behave similarly.
The problem is that __attribute__((noreturn)) can only be applied to a
*function call which will never return*, a static assertion does not
generate a function call (indeed must not do so), so there is nothing to
which that attribute can be applied.
If you know differently then I'm all ears,
Regards,
John.