Issue with Assert statement in solidity

Question

I am probably missing something very obvious but I cannot get the simplest assert statement to work! What am I doing wrong?

My goal is to simply confirm that I am within a start date and end date range using "now".

I cannot even get assert (1==1); to return true!

Please assist!

pragma solidity ^0.4.18;

contract TestAssert {

// Unix timestamp converter used = https://www.unixtimestamp.com/
   uint256 public constant startDate = 1517907600; // 02/06/2018 09:00:00 
   uint256 public constant endDate = 1522659600; // 04/02/2018 09:00:00

//This is the Constructor
  function TestAssert() {

  }

  function assertOneEqualsOne () returns (bool) {
    assert(1 == 1);
  }

  function assertStartDate () constant returns(bool){
    assert(now >= startDate); 
  }

  function assertEndDate () constant returns(bool){
    assert(now <= endDate);
  }

  function returnNow() returns (uint256) {
    return now;
  }

  function () payable {
     // this is the fallback function.
  }

}

Answer 1

You need to add a return to your functions.

   function assertOneEqualsOne () external pure returns (bool) {
           assert(1 == 1);
           return true;
   }

If the assert fails it will signal a REVERT and throw an exception in your client code.