Editing Defensive programming (section)

=== Trusting internal data validity ===

;Overly defensive programming
<syntaxhighlight lang="c">
const char* trafficlight_colorname(enum traffic_light_color c) {
    switch (c) {
        case TRAFFICLIGHT_RED:    return "red";
        case TRAFFICLIGHT_YELLOW: return "yellow";
        case TRAFFICLIGHT_GREEN:  return "green";
    }
    return "black"; // To be handled as a dead traffic light.
}
</syntaxhighlight>

;Offensive programming
<syntaxhighlight lang="c">
const char* trafficlight_colorname(enum traffic_light_color c) {
    switch (c) {
        case TRAFFICLIGHT_RED:    return "red";
        case TRAFFICLIGHT_YELLOW: return "yellow";
        case TRAFFICLIGHT_GREEN:  return "green";
    }
    assert(0); // Assert that this section is unreachable.
}
</syntaxhighlight>