The following is for my java class

Which of the following best describes what this line of code does?

assert count > 0 : "violated precondition size() > 0";

a) It's basically an if statement -- that text will be printed any time the condition is true

b) It's similar to an if statement, except assertions are, by default, turned off when executing Java code, because they are mostly used for debugging

c) It's basically just like the question mark (?) operator in C/C++. Any time the condition is true, the first item is returned. If the condition is false, the second item is returned.