Lesson 13. Casting Operators

Casting is a mechanism by which the programmer can temporarily or permanently change the interpretation of an object by the compiler. Note that this does not imply that the programmer changes the object itself—he simply changes the interpretation thereof. Operators that change the interpretation of an object are called casting operators.

In this lesson, you learn

• The need for casting operators

• Why C-style casts are not popular with some C++ programmers

• The four C++ casting operators

• The concepts of upcasting and downcasting

• Why C++ casting operators are not all-time favorites either

The Need for Casting

In a perfectly type-safe and type-strong world comprising well-written C++ applications, there should ...

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