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We had a discussion with colleagues on why in the following code we cannot simply use

static_assert(false)

but need to do a trick with ‘always_false’:

#include <type_traits>

template<typename>
struct always_false : std::false_type {};

template<typename Type>
constexpr int Get()
{
    if constexpr (std::is_same_v<Type, int>)
    {
        return 1;
    }
    else if constexpr (std::is_same_v<Type, bool>)
    {
        return 2;
    }
    else {
        static_assert(always_false<Type>::value);
    }
}

int main()
{
    constexpr auto result = Get<bool>(); //ok

    //compile error: static assertion failed
    //constexpr auto result = Get<float>();

    return  result;
}

In GCC and CLang ‘static_assert(false)’ always fails independently of Type, but in MSVC it does not.

Finally we found the answer on cppreference.com, see ‘dependent_false’.