Chapter 4 Type Conversions

Assignment — Assignment operations cause some implicit type conversions. This makes arithmetic operations easier to write. Assigning an integer type variable to a floating type variable causes an automatic conversion from the integer type to the floating type.

Function call — Arguments to functions are implicitly converted following a number of 'widening' conversions. For example, characters are automatically converted to integers when passed as function arguments in the absence of a prototype.

Normal conversions — In preparation for arithmetic or logical operations, the compiler automatically converts from one type to another. Also, if two operands are not of the same type, one or both may be converted to a common type before the operation is performed.

Casting — You can explicitly force a conversion from one type to another using a cast operation.

Returned values — Values returned from a function are automatically converted to the function's type. For example, if a function was declared to return a double and the return statement has an integer expression, the integer value is automatically converted to a double.