Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]
Groups > comp.lang.c > #139036
| From | James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> |
|---|---|
| Newsgroups | comp.lang.c |
| Subject | Re: A final word on casting. |
| Date | 2018-12-24 17:52 -0500 |
| Organization | A noiseless patient Spider |
| Message-ID | <pvro00$es$1@dont-email.me> (permalink) |
| References | <af569436-b2e1-492b-8379-9f927013c590@googlegroups.com> <41c52811-03f6-4546-a2d4-fe85d9d27411@googlegroups.com> |
On 12/24/18 17:03, chanrasjid@gmail.com wrote:
> I think I have got the final word on casting:
> "It is the set of rules to convert from one data type to another."
Nope - casting is use of a particular syntax to explicitly command the
conversion of data from one type to another. Conversions can also occur
without being commanded.
> I think it is what Ben and others have said. It is as simple as that - hope I am right this time.
>
> Just to satisfy myself, I google for "C casting" and read what some articles teach about C casting. Basically, it is what I seem to already know.
>
> The only thing that troubled me in the past was the casting of signed int to unsigned :
> while (number < 0) {
> number += MAX_UNSIGNED_INT + 1
> }
> It was explained that the cast here does not change the bit patterns; both values have the same bits, but values will be different as they depend on interpretation of the bits.
That's true when working with signed data stored using 2's complement
format, which is overwhelmingly the most common format. This is not a
coincidence - that mandated behavior was deliberately chosen to match
the actual behavior of most real-world implementations. However, what
you said is NOT true when using 1's complement or sign-magnitude
formats, which are the other two formats permitted by the C standard.
> I was thinking along why would anyone entertain having one of its computed -ve value assigned to an unsigned int. No one starts off with : unsigned int x = -123, y = -23,... rarely. So what is the purpose of casting.
Since it's a conversion that can occur implicitly without use of a cast,
there is, indeed, little point in casting.
Overwhelmingly the most common reason I've seen for such a conversion is
to convert -1 to an unsigned type, which is guaranteed to result in the
largest representable value of that type. Macros from <limits.h> can
also be used for the same purpose - but are less convenient in cases
where a typedef is used.
I'm sure there are other good reasons for making use of this feature,
but offhand I can't remember any, so I hope other people will address
that question.
> As C allows for assignment of one type to a variable of a different type, a set of casting rules is needed.
C does not allow assignment of a value of one type to a variable of a
different type. What it does do is mandate (under certain circumstances)
conversion of the value from the source type to the destination type,
with such conversion occurring, at lease nominally, before the
assignment itself. It's a subtle distinction, and I'm not sure the
distinction matters, but that is how the standard describes the required
behavior.
Since these conversions occur implicitly, casting rules are not needed -
but type conversion rules are.
> So this is C type casting.
"type casting" is something that happens to actors. In C, there is such
a thing as a type conversion, and a cast can be used to command such a
conversion to be performed, but "type casting" is not a term that can be
correctly used to describe any part of that process.
Back to comp.lang.c | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread
A final word on casting. chanrasjid@gmail.com - 2018-12-23 03:02 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2018-12-23 12:11 +0000
Re: A final word on casting. Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2018-12-23 13:08 +0000
Re: A final word on casting. Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2018-12-23 14:43 +0000
Re: A final word on casting. Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2018-12-23 14:56 +0000
Re: A final word on casting. chanrasjid@gmail.com - 2018-12-23 07:08 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2018-12-23 15:55 +0000
Re: A final word on casting. Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2018-12-23 16:07 +0000
Re: A final word on casting. James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2018-12-23 08:21 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2018-12-23 17:56 +0000
Re: A final word on casting. Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2018-12-23 19:23 +0000
Re: A final word on casting. Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2018-12-23 20:12 +0000
Re: A final word on casting. James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2018-12-23 14:06 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2018-12-28 09:34 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2018-12-28 20:29 +0000
Re: A final word on casting. Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2018-12-28 15:07 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. Richard Damon <Richard@Damon-Family.org> - 2018-12-28 20:56 -0500
Re: A final word on casting. Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2018-12-29 09:22 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2019-01-01 13:27 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-01-02 01:07 +0000
Re: A final word on casting. Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2019-01-03 18:55 +0000
Re: A final word on casting. Richard Damon <Richard@Damon-Family.org> - 2019-01-03 22:27 -0500
Re: A final word on casting. James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2019-01-04 16:25 -0500
Re: A final word on casting. Ike Naar <ike@iceland.freeshell.org> - 2018-12-28 19:10 +0000
Re: A final word on casting. James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2018-12-28 12:33 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. "Chris M. Thomasson" <invalid_chris_thomasson@invalid.invalid> - 2018-12-23 14:11 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2018-12-24 02:54 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2018-12-24 03:24 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2018-12-24 03:29 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2018-12-24 03:45 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2018-12-24 13:44 +0000
Re: A final word on casting. Richard Damon <Richard@Damon-Family.org> - 2018-12-24 08:51 -0500
Re: A final word on casting. Richard Damon <Richard@Damon-Family.org> - 2018-12-23 14:53 -0500
Re: A final word on casting. Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> - 2018-12-24 09:39 -0600
Re: A final word on casting. Richard Damon <Richard@Damon-Family.org> - 2018-12-24 13:38 -0500
Re: A final word on casting. Manfred <noname@add.invalid> - 2018-12-23 21:22 +0100
Re: A final word on casting. Manfred <noname@add.invalid> - 2018-12-23 21:33 +0100
Re: A final word on casting. James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2018-12-23 10:56 -0500
Re: A final word on casting. Sjouke Burry <burrynulnulfour@ppllaanneett.nnll> - 2018-12-23 17:18 +0100
Re: A final word on casting. Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2018-12-23 20:03 +0000
Re: A final word on casting. "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2018-12-28 14:47 -0500
Re: A final word on casting. Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2018-12-23 12:24 +0000
Re: A final word on casting. Richard Damon <Richard@Damon-Family.org> - 2018-12-23 07:28 -0500
Re: A final word on casting. Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2018-12-28 07:50 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2018-12-23 04:35 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2018-12-23 04:42 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> - 2018-12-23 04:52 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2018-12-23 10:28 -0500
Re: A final word on casting. Barry Schwarz <schwarzb@dqel.com> - 2018-12-23 11:39 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. Ike Naar <ike@iceland.freeshell.org> - 2018-12-24 07:56 +0000
Re: A final word on casting. chanrasjid@gmail.com - 2018-12-24 14:03 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. Barry Schwarz <schwarzb@dqel.com> - 2018-12-24 14:39 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. chanrasjid@gmail.com - 2018-12-24 14:50 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2018-12-24 15:34 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2018-12-24 15:23 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. chanrasjid@gmail.com - 2018-12-24 20:34 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2018-12-24 14:52 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. chanrasjid@gmail.com - 2018-12-24 20:25 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2018-12-24 17:52 -0500
Re: A final word on casting. luser droog <luser.droog@gmail.com> - 2018-12-24 21:27 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. luser droog <luser.droog@gmail.com> - 2018-12-24 21:39 -0800
Re: A final word on casting. chanrasjid@gmail.com - 2018-12-24 22:36 -0800
csiph-web