Talk:Sokoban: Difference between revisions

: 1) You originally had <code>board = calloc(...); assert(board);</code>. This was done probably so it still runs with <code>cc -DNDEBUG</code>, but that's the wrong thing to do. <code>calloc</code> will return 0 if and only if there's no memory left, so you are asserting that allocation succeeded, which is a run time check as opposed to verifying contracts during debugging. If the runtime check is meaningful and should be performed, then <code>NDEBUG</code> shouldn't be set at all; if it ''may'' be set, then the valid check should have been <code>if (!board) {...}</code> instead of <code>assert</code>. I put the <code>assert</code> there to make <code>assert</code>ive people happy, personally I don't want it there at all. A failed alloc returns 0, which segfaults when you deref it, so you don't have the risk of putting data behind wrong pointers.