Assert allowed to have side effects?

[Stewart Gordon]

On 29/05/2011 14:03, bearophile wrote:
> Stewart Gordon:
>
>> There are places where the spec fails to make a clear distinction between illegal code and
>> incorrect code that the compiler may reject if it's smart enough.
>
> In D there are pure functions, so I think it's not too much hard for it to tell apart
> when the contents of an assert() are pure or not.
> My opinion is that the D compiler has to enforce purity inside assert(), to avoid bugs.

Only if purity rules are relaxed.  AIUI, one of the restrictions at the moment is that in 
a pure function only immutable data can be accessed.  As long as this restriction remains 
in place, adding the restriction of purity to asserts would erode their usefulness.

Stewart.