phanalist

E0042: Impossible Assertion

E0042 reports assertions that can never hold. It is the assertion member of Phanalist’s bounded formal verification family (E0031-E0043). The family shares a Z3-backed engine that encodes path conditions and values.

What it checks

• Assertions whose condition is unsatisfiable on every feasible path
• Assertions narrowed by earlier branches, isset(), and short-circuit conditions
• assert() calls with modelable boolean conditions
• Unknown assertion conditions are treated as assumptions, not failures

Model limits

E0042 shares the model limits, loop bounds, and interprocedural behavior described in E0031. It reports an assertion only when the assertion provably can never hold; it does not report an assertion merely because its condition is unknown.

Configuration

rules:
  E0042:
    php_version: "8.4"
    check_assertions: true

See E0031 for the shared model limits, unknown_policy behavior, and per-code configuration.

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