[Interest] How does one use Q_ASSUME?

[René J. V. Bertin]

Giuseppe D'Angelo via Interest wrote:

Hi,

> On the other hand, Q_ASSUME(cond) tells the compiler that cond is true,

After reading the MS doc I sort of understand how you can use the construct to 
implement a Q_UNREACHABLE (but in the example given I don't see the codegen 
advantage of `default: Q_UNREACHABLE` vs. not adding a `default:` at all).

> Look here at a possible example at how it can improve codegen:
> 
> https://gcc.godbolt.org/z/KlWBRY

Not really, I'm afraid.

The only thing that's evident to me from there is that there is much fewer 
generated machine code when you add the assume statement. I don't see at all why 
that would be, what difference it would make for the loop that it is always 
iterated over a multiple of 16. I thought the difference might be in evaluating 
the `i < count` expression, but even after trying to factor that out the 
difference remains:
https://gcc.godbolt.org/z/2Zclp5

Take home message for me is that this is a construct that's probably useful only 
if you have very intimate knowledge about code generation, and thus not very 
cross-platform/compiler (and even less cross-architecture). Except for the 
Q_UNREACHABLE thing.

What I was hoping it might do is what the Qt documentation suggests, a more 
graceful version of a Q_ASSERT. That is, a version that does the usual abort in 
debug builds, but becomes a regular if in production code. I've seen too many 
examples of coding where a Q_ASSERT is used to guard against situations that are 
*assumed* never to occur, and then forgotten (or the devs assume everyone else 
uses debug/development builds). In many if not most of those cases it's trivial 
to add a graceful handling of the situation.

R