With Vala 0.18.0 (and possibly older versions, I found this with brand-new code), I get soft assertions and bad C code when using a ternary operator to initialize a struct's fields.  For example:


struct Frotz {
    int nitfol;
}

void main(string[] args) {
    // This causes soft assertions and invalid C code
    Frotz f = Frotz() { nitfol = (args.length > 2) ? 42 : 23 };
    
    // this is only to prevent unused-variable compiler warnings
    f.nitfol = 0;
}

yields these errors:

** (valac:19708): CRITICAL **: vala_block_insert_before: assertion `stmt != NULL' failed

** (valac:19708): CRITICAL **: vala_block_insert_before: assertion `stmt != NULL' failed
/home/jim/test/test.vala.c: In function ‘_vala_main’:
/home/jim/test/test.vala.c:54:11: error: ‘_tmp0_’ undeclared (first use in this function)


Removing the ternary operator avoids the problem.