Type Casting in C

Type casting in C is the process of converting one data type into another. It allows you to change the interpretation or representation of data. This tutorial will explain the concept of type casting, its various forms, and provide examples to illustrate its use.

1. Introduction to Type Casting

In C, data types are fundamental to the language's behavior. Sometimes, you may need to convert one data type into another to perform a specific operation or assignment. Type casting provides a way to perform such conversions explicitly.

2. Implicit Type Conversion

C allows implicit type conversion, also known as type coercion or automatic type conversion, when certain conditions are met. This occurs when you assign a value of one data type to a variable of another data type without an explicit cast. For example:

int num1 = 10;
float num2 = num1; // Implicit conversion from int to float

3. Explicit Type Conversion (Type Casting)

When you want to control type conversions explicitly, you can use type casting. Type casting is done by specifying the target data type in parentheses before the value or variable to be converted. Here's the syntax:

(target_type) expression

For example:

float num1 = 10.5;
int num2 = (int)num1; // Explicit conversion from float to int

4. Casting Between Data Types

You can use type casting to convert between various data types, such as:

• Integer to float or double
• Float to integer
• Integer to character
• Character to integer, etc.

5. Examples of Type Casting

Example 1: Converting Float to Integer

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    float num1 = 10.7;
    int num2 = (int)num1; // Explicit conversion from float to int

    printf("num1 (float): %f\n", num1);
    printf("num2 (int): %d\n", num2);

    return 0;
}

In this example, we explicitly convert a float to an integer, discarding the fractional part.

Example 2: Converting Character to Integer

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    char ch = 'A';
    int asciiValue = (int)ch; // Explicit conversion from char to int

    printf("Character: %c\n", ch);
    printf("ASCII Value: %d\n", asciiValue);

    return 0;
}