What is assertation?

Assertion, also known as assert statement or simply assert, is a programming language construct used to evaluate whether a condition is true or false. It is mainly used as a debugging aid to help programmers identify errors and diagnose issues in their code.

An assertion consists of three main parts: a test expression that evaluates to a boolean value, a message that is printed when the assertion fails, and a location that indicates where the assertion occurred in the source code.

When the test expression in an assertion evaluates to true, the program continues executing normally. However, when the test expression evaluates to false, the program raises an assertion error and the message is printed along with the location where the assertion occurred. This helps the programmer to identify the specific location and cause of the error, making it easier to fix the problem.

Assertions are particularly useful for testing the correctness of code and detecting unexpected behavior. They can be used throughout the development process to avoid bugs and ensure that the program behaves as expected. However, it is important to note that assertions should not be used in place of error handling or as a way to catch and handle exceptions.