[swift-users] Parameter Validation

[Jens Alfke]

> On Dec 7, 2015, at 9:03 AM, David Hart <david at wittywings.fr> wrote:
> 
> But then you can't unit-test that the function fails on those parameters. To look at a counter-argument, both C# and Java would throw exceptions for parameter validation.

I agree, that’s a drawback. But the alternative of ‘throwing’ an exception adds so much overhead that it’s IMHO a non-starter. Except in the case where the method can already return/throw errors, but that’s not always going to be the case. Operator overloads are a particular problem for errors — consider range-checking the index to a subscript operator: you have no choice but an assertion, since that method is incapable of returning/throwing errors.

As I said yesterday, I think the best solution is to make the unit testing framework somehow capable of magically recovering from assertion failure. (Which it might be already, at least on Apple platforms — I haven’t explicitly tested what XCTest does, but I don’t remember my test suites ever completely bombing out due to an assertion failure. IIRC they just continue to the next test. But it’s possible I’m forgetting!)

—Jens
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