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For assertions involving only constant expressions, a preprocessor conditional statement may be used, as in this examplecompliant solution:

struct timer {
  unsigned char MODE;
  unsigned int DATA;
  unsigned int COUNT;
};

#if (sizeof(struct timer) != (sizeof(unsigned char) + sizeof(unsigned int) + sizeof(unsigned int)))
  #error "Structure must not have any padding"
#endif

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Other uses of static assertion are shown in STR07-C. Use the bounds-checking interfaces for remediation of existing string manipulation code and void FIO35-C. Use feof() and ferror() to detect end-of-file and file errors when sizeof(int) == sizeof(char).

Risk Assessment

Static assertion is a valuable diagnostic tool for finding and eliminating software defects that may result in vulnerabilities at compile time. The absence of static assertions, however, does not mean that code is incorrect.

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