411 REFERENCE · Wikibooks
C++ Language/ErrorHandling/Assertions
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The assert(condition); statement is conditionally-compiled.
When building a debug build-configuration, define the _DEBUG preprocessor symbol so that assert() will evaluate its condition (aborting the software execution if that condition evaluates to false).
When building a release build-configuration, instead define the NDEBUG preprocessor symbol so that assert() efficiently generates no machine language code.
Additional information about assertions