[python] Best practice for using assert?

Is there a performance issue?

  • Please remember to "make it work first before you make it work fast".
    Very few percent of any program are usually relevant for its speed. You can always kick out or simplify an assert if it ever proves to be a performance problem -- and most of them never will.

  • Be pragmatic:
    Assume you have a method that processes a non-empty list of tuples and the program logic will break if those tuples are not immutable. You should write:

    def mymethod(listOfTuples):
        assert(all(type(tp)==tuple for tp in listOfTuples))
    

    This is probably fine if your lists tend to be ten entries long, but it can become a problem if they have a million entries. But rather than discarding this valuable check entirely you could simply downgrade it to

    def mymethod(listOfTuples):
        assert(type(listOfTuples[0])==tuple)  # in fact _all_ must be tuples!
    

    which is cheap but will likely catch most of the actual program errors anyway.

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