Casting Hints

One thing to beware of is casting a value vs. casting an entire expression.

The cast operator ( type ) has high precedence and will cast whatever is next to it.

The expression below will not compile.

int i1 = 3;
int i2 = 12;
short result = (short)i1 + i2;

* The problem is that only i1 is being cast to a short; the result of addition is still an int.

What about this?

short result = (short)i1 + (short)i2;

* This is the same issue; both operands are cast to (short), but then promoted to int for addition.

We need to cast the entire expression.

short result = (short)(i1 + i2);

To convert to a String, do not use the cast operator.

Any type can be converted to a String implicitly using the + operator where the other operand is a String.

double d = 12.5;
String s = "" + d;