Best practice for debug Asserts during Unit testing

Question

Does heavy use of unit tests discourage the use of debug asserts? It seems like a debug assert firing in the code under test implies the unit test shouldn\'t exist or the d

Answer 1

Do you mean C++/Java asserts for "programming by contract" assertions, or CppUnit/JUnit asserts? That last question leads me to believe that it's the former.

Interesting question, because it's my understanding that those asserts are often turned off at runtime when you deploy to production. (Kinda defeats the purpose, but that's another question.)

I'd say that they should be left in your code when you test it. You write tests to ensure that the pre-conditions are being enforced properly. The test should be a "black box"; you should be acting as a client to the class when you test. If you happen to turn them off in production, it doesn't invalidate the tests.