Assertions and error checking

AMReX assert macros

AMReX provides several assertion macros:

• AMREX_ASSERT: Works when CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug.

• AMREX_ALWAYS_ASSERT: Always works on CPU. Works on GPU only if “-DNDEBUG” is NOT added to the compiler flags. Note that CMake adds “-DNDEBUG” by default when “CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release”. (See this GitHub discussion for details.)

Abort

Because the default CMake flags added in Release mode causes AMREX_ALWAYS_ASSERT not to function in GPU code, amrex::Abort is the best option to use if you want to abort a GPU kernel.

amrex::Abort requires additional GPU register usage, so it should be used sparingly. The best strategy for error handling is often to set a value in an array that indicates an iterative solve failed in a given cell. (This is what Castro does for its nuclear burning networks.)

For more details, see the AMReX documentation on assertions and error checking.