PR java/16927 [Was Re: PATCH for better assertion control.]

[Andrew Haley]

Per Bothner writes:
 > Andrew Haley wrote:
 > 
 > > The obvious fix is not to generate code for the assertion at all -- it
 > > cannot be executed -- but simply return a null statement.  However,
 > > you've gone to some trouble here not to do the "obvious" thing.  Is
 > > there a special reason why?  Maybe warnings for unused args or
 > > something like that?
 > 
 > As I recall: yes.  More generally, to catch errors.
 > 
 > I don't remember the hows and whys of patch_string to know if your
 > patch is correct.  It does seem like a kludge, but so does the
 > mechanism of patch_string.  I don't remember why Alex did it this
 > way:  One would think there must be a cleaner way

Indeed.  However, I'm pretty sure that patch_string does do the right
thing, and that calling it at this point solves the problem.  But the
whole approach of patching tree nodes is fraught with problems.

Andrew.