Hi Amit,

In TF-A project, the expectation is that all programming errors would be caught and fixed during development and testing, prior to product shipping. This is why the policy says that it's safe to remove them in release builds. This is the default behaviour.
However, if this policy does not suit your use case, it is possible to retain assertions in release builds by building TF-A source code with ENABLE_ASSERTIONS=1. This will override the default behaviour.

Best regards,
Sandrine

From: Nagal, Amit <amit.nagal@amd.com>
Sent: 11 October 2023 11:57
To: Sandrine Bailleux <Sandrine.Bailleux@arm.com>; tf-a@lists.trustedfirmware.org <tf-a@lists.trustedfirmware.org>; Nithin S <nithinrocks08@gmail.com>
Subject: RE: [TF-A] Re: Usage of assert functions in TFA Code
 
Hi Sandrine ,
> Programming errors can be safely handled through debug assertions and removed in debug builds.
Programming errors (eg bad argument) should be caught in release build also right .
If somehow the programming errors occur in release build, how these will be caught in release build ?
Why is the policy to handle programming error in debug builds only.

Regards
Amit

 



From: Sandrine Bailleux via TF-A <tf-a@lists.trustedfirmware.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2023 1:52 PM
To: tf-a@lists.trustedfirmware.org; Nithin S <nithinrocks08@gmail.com>
Subject: [TF-A] Re: Usage of assert functions in TFA Code

Hello Nithin,

If you have not already done it, I suggest you take a look at TF-A error handling policy:
https://trustedfirmware-a.readthedocs.io/en/latest/process/coding-guidelines.html#using-assert-to-check-for-programming-errors

This document clarifies what we consider as programming errors. Some might be surprising (e.g. bad argument provided by platform porting function), if you're coming from a different project with a different error handling policy. Programming errors can be safely handled through debug assertions and removed in debug builds.

All other types of errors must be handled with proper runtime tests which are preserved in release builds.

Hope that helps,
Sandrine
________________________________________
From: Nithin S via TF-A <mailto:tf-a@lists.trustedfirmware.org>
Sent: 11 October 2023 09:36
To: mailto:tf-a@lists.trustedfirmware.org <mailto:tf-a@lists.trustedfirmware.org>
Subject: [TF-A] Usage of assert functions in TFA Code
 
Hello,
There are multiple occurrences in TFA Code where assert statements are used to handle function arguments. But these assert statements are currently enabled only in debug mode. So, I wanted to know that will there be any harm in continuing to use assert statements in production code as well for handling failures?

Regards,
Nithin S
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