Assertions

[cyril vidal]

Dear all,
Here's what can be found in Complete Java 2 Certification Study Guide, p.163, Chapter 5 (Flow Control, Exceptions, and Asseertions).

This example demonstrates that assertions are appropriate for checking preconditions in any method regardless of access, and for checking post-conditions in private methods

I believe this is wrong, and is supposed to be exactly the inverse:

This example demonstrates that assertions are appropriate for checking postconditions in any method regardless of access, and for checking pre-conditions in private methods

Am I right on this subject?
Thanks for your reponse,
Cyril.

[Alton Hernandez]

This example demonstrates that assertions are appropriate for checking postconditions in any method regardless of access, and for checking pre-conditions in private methods

I agree with you. That seems to be the right statement.
Public methods will probably have pre-condition checks as part of its code because its signature or specification is published. Private methods, on the other hand, probably will not have this because they act like helper methods to the public methods. They expect that the parameters had been validated before passing it to them.
Just my $0.02
[ July 31, 2003: Message edited by: Alton Hernandez ]

[Thomas Paul]

It should be the way that you corrected it.

[Thomas Paul]

Check the errata page for the correction:
http://www.sybex.com/erratatracking.nsf/weberrataform?OpenForm&ISBN=4077

[cyril vidal]

Thanks Thomas!