Type Casting in Java

It is sometimes necessary to convert a data item of one type to another type. For example when it is necessary to perform some arithmetic using data items of different types (so called mixed mode arithmetic). Under certain circumstances Type conversion can be carried out automatically, in other cases it must be "forced" manually (explicitly).

Automatic Conversion : In Java type conversions are performed automatically when the type of the expression on the right hand side of an assignment operation can be safely promoted to the type of the variable on the left hand side of the assignment. Thus we can safely assign: byte -> short -> int -> long -> float -> double.

For example :

//64 bit long integer

long myLongInteger;

//32 bit long integer

int myInteger;

myLongInteger=myInteger;

The extra storage associated with the long integer, in the above example, will simply be padded with extra zeros.

Explicit Conversion (Casting) : The above will not work the other way round. For example we cannot automatically convert a long to an int because the first requires more storage than the second and consequently information may be lost. To force such a conversion we must carry out an explicit conversion (assuming of course that the long integer will fit into a standard integer). This is done using a process known as a type cast :

myInteger = (int) myLongInteger

This tells the compiler that the type of myLongInteger must be temporarily changed to a int when the given assignment statement is processed. Thus, the cast only lasts for the duration of the assignment. Java type casts have the following form: (T) N where T is the name of a numeric type and N is a data item of another numeric type. The result is of type T.