Talk:Type conversion

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[edit] Off topic

This article is off topic. Most of it is not "Type conversion" but "tutorial to C/C++ cast operation".

I did some to improve (see history) but I would ask the C/C++ advocates to consider two things:

  1. tutorials belong to wikibooks.
  2. that there are other programming languages where "Type conversion" has a more broader meaning.

and maybe improve the C/C++ chapter.

You are right in that the current article is not good at all. But we need to remember that C++ has quite complex type conversion system, compared with others. The problem is the shortcoming, which is not intentionally done by C/C++ advocates but is mere result of lack of contributions so far. If you think the article goes too deep, take a look at LR parser and the like. -- Taku 04:27, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)
Did you read my Ada article? C++ is not the only language with a complex type conversion system. And of corse is should be described in wiki. The question I was trying to raise was "wikipedia vs wikibooks". How much of C/C++ cast need to be described in wikipedia "The Free Encyclopedia" and what should better moved to wikibooks "Think Free. Learn Free". --Krischik 09:43, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I support the idea of a merger between "typecasting" and "type conversion". I was searching for dynamic_cast<>. The first link I took brought me to "typecasting". However, I found the explanation on "type conversion". --Kriti 05:24, 24 Aug 2005(UTC)
I agree, typecasting needs to be merged with this article. Both articles need work. -- Doug Bell (talk/contrib) 20:52, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I am looking for a way to convert a string to integer when you know the string character is a number like 7. --Mrja84 20:14, 11 Oct 2005(ESDT)
Of course, this depends on the language and primitives you want to use. But since you're asking, the answer could be *string - '0'. --TuukkaH 14:45, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
I believe there should be a least 3 separate pages linked from the Type_conversion page, those being pages for static_cast, reinterpret_cast, and dynamic_cast. --IanVaughan 11:44, 9 Nov 2006 (UTC)
I find this quite confusing, I have to say. Type conversion and type casting are very different things. Type casting being making the compiler think that something is a different type, and type conversion actually turning one type into another, in some fashion, say using atoi, in C or Integer.parseInt in Java. K.

What is the aviation reference doing in this article? It needs to be moved to a separate article. -- Doug Bell (talk/contrib) 20:52, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Ditto. One tiny section on aviation followed by an article on computer science is completely out-of-place. It should be moved to a separate article with a disambiguation page. -- Andrés Santiago Pérez-Bergquist 23:41, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inaccuracies

The section on implicit type conversion contained false and misleading statements:

  • "For example, in the above comparisons, there would be a loss of information in a conversion from type double to type int if the value of d is larger than i can hold."
    False. The comparisons listed do not involve any conversion from double to int, but the other way around. Actually, any comparison involving a double and an int will have the int promoted to double, not the other way around.
  • Conversely, converting from an integral representation to a floating-point one can also lose precision, as floating-point representations are generally not capable of holding integer values precisely.
    Inaccurate. What is true is that a floating-point representation of n bits can never hold all integer values of n bits precisely, since there's just not enough room for both the exponent and the significand. However, an IEEE 754 double precision type is capable of representing all 32-bit integer values exactly, for example, so this statement is misleading, especially in the given context. 82.95.254.249 18:12, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
    • 32 bit to double can't lose precision but 64 bit to double or 32 bit to float can but i agree that section needs a rewrite. Plugwash 01:19, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
  • "...the fractional components of the floating-point values will be truncated (rounded down)."
    Those aren't the same thing. For negative numbers, rounding down means going to the next lower integer (ie floor), while truncating means removing the fractional part. 76.118.217.245 (talk) 19:28, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merge from static_cast

Old merge proposal that hasn't been formally discussed. No opinion. Pairadox 04:33, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Should be merged to an article on C++ casting operators (or C++ operators), if there is and should be such an article. If I find one I'll update that merge tag. — The Storm Surfer 22:58, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge from ato*

I think that the information from the atoi and atof articles should be included. Any thoughts? --208.138.31.76 (talk) 15:38, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree, IMHO we should go even further and make an article like Functions converting from ASCII in standard ANSI C library (with a better name of course) and merge atoi, atof, strtod, etc... Miko3k (talk) 00:45, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
I disagree with the inclusion because this article is theoric. But creating an article merging atoi, atof, strtod, etc... is a good idea —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.231.158.89 (talk) 16:59, 4 June 2008 (UTC)