4.2) Type Conversion

Operators always act on values of the same type. Thus, in expressions with mixed types, the compiler will perform implicit type conversion.

for example, in an arithmetic operation on an int and a float, the int is promoted to a float so that the operation in fact takes place on a pair of float values, yielding a float result.

Sometimes, it is necessary to perform type conversion explicitly. This is done by means of a cast. C++ compilers permit three different syntaxes for this, as illustrated in the examples below.

// C++ static casting operator
int n = static_cast<int>(x);
float z = static_cast<float>(x*x + y*y);
// Functional notation
int n = int(x);
float z = float(x*x + y*y);
// Traditional 'C-style' casting
int n = (int) x;
float z = (float) (x*x + y*y);