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C - Type Casting - Tutorialspoint

Type casting involves explicitly converting a value from one data type to another. This allows values to be stored or operated on using different types. For example, casting a long integer to an int. The cast operator is used like (type_name)expression. Integer promotion automatically converts smaller integer types like char to int or unsigned int. Usual arithmetic conversion implicitly casts operands to a common type based on type hierarchy to allow mixed-type arithmetic.

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26 views

C - Type Casting - Tutorialspoint

Type casting involves explicitly converting a value from one data type to another. This allows values to be stored or operated on using different types. For example, casting a long integer to an int. The cast operator is used like (type_name)expression. Integer promotion automatically converts smaller integer types like char to int or unsigned int. Usual arithmetic conversion implicitly casts operands to a common type based on type hierarchy to allow mixed-type arithmetic.

Uploaded by

avigail ceballos
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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C - Type Casting - Tutorialspoint https://www.tutorialspoint.com/cprogramming/c_type_ca...

C - Type Casting

Converting one datatype into another is known as type casting or, type-conversion. For example,
if you want to store a 'long' value into a simple integer then you can type cast 'long' to 'int'. You
can convert the values from one type to another explicitly using the cast operator as follows −

(type_name) expression

Consider the following example where the cast operator causes the division of one integer
variable by another to be performed as a floating-point operation −

Live Demo
#include <stdio.h>

main() {

int sum = 17, count = 5;


double mean;

mean = (double) sum / count;


printf("Value of mean : %f\n", mean );
}

When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces the following result −

Value of mean : 3.400000

It should be noted here that the cast operator has precedence over division, so the value of sum
is first converted to type double and finally it gets divided by count yielding a double value.

Type conversions can be implicit which is performed by the compiler automatically, or it can be
specified explicitly through the use of the cast operator. It is considered good programming
practice to use the cast operator whenever type conversions are necessary.

Integer Promotion
Integer promotion is the process by which values of integer type "smaller" than int or unsigned
int are converted either to int or unsigned int. Consider an example of adding a character with
an integer −

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C - Type Casting - Tutorialspoint https://www.tutorialspoint.com/cprogramming/c_type_ca...

Live Demo
#include <stdio.h>

main() {

int i = 17;
char c = 'c'; /* ascii value is 99 */
int sum;

sum = i + c;
printf("Value of sum : %d\n", sum );
}

When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces the following result −

Value of sum : 116

Here, the value of sum is 116 because the compiler is doing integer promotion and converting
the value of 'c' to ASCII before performing the actual addition operation.

Usual Arithmetic Conversion


The usual arithmetic conversions are implicitly performed to cast their values to a common
type. The compiler first performs integer promotion; if the operands still have different types,
then they are converted to the type that appears highest in the following hierarchy −

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C - Type Casting - Tutorialspoint https://www.tutorialspoint.com/cprogramming/c_type_ca...

The usual arithmetic conversions are not performed for the assignment operators, nor for the
logical operators && and ||. Let us take the following example to understand the concept −

Live Demo
#include <stdio.h>

main() {

int i = 17;
char c = 'c'; /* ascii value is 99 */
float sum;

sum = i + c;
printf("Value of sum : %f\n", sum );
}

When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces the following result −

Value of sum : 116.000000

Here, it is simple to understand that first c gets converted to integer, but as the final value is
double, usual arithmetic conversion applies and the compiler converts i and c into 'float' and
adds them yielding a 'float' result.

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