Assertions

[jladasky at itu.edu]

On Thursday, September 21, 2017 at 9:29:19 AM UTC-7, Tobiah wrote:
> Are these completely equivalent?
> 
> def foo(thing):
> 
>         assert(thing > 0), "Thing must be greater than zero"
> 
> 
> def foo(thing):
> 
>         if not (thing > 0): raise AssertionError("Thing must be greater than zero")
> 
> 
> Other than the fact that the assertion can be turned off
> with -O?

For that reason, I would prefer to raise ValueError instead of AssertionError.  The -O flag is nice for turning off test code.  If the code is essential to the functionality of the program, you probably don't want to misidentify it as test code.