Standard Conversions
Visual Studio .NET 2003
The C++ language defines conversions between its fundamental types. It also defines conversions for pointer, reference, and pointer-to-member derived types. These conversions are called "standard conversions." (For more information about types, standard types, and derived types, see Types.)
This section discusses the following standard conversions:
- Integral promotions
- Integral conversions
- Floating conversions
- Floating and integral conversions
- Arithmetic conversions
- Pointer conversions
- Reference conversions
- Pointer-to-member conversions
Note User-defined types can specify their own conversions. Conversion of user-defined types is covered in Constructors and Conversions.
The following code causes conversions (in this example, integral promotions):
long lnum1, lnum2; int inum; // inum promoted to type long prior to assignment. lnum1 = inum; // inum promoted to type long prior to multiplication. lnum2 = inum * lnum2;
Note The result of a conversion is an l-value only if it produces a reference type. For example, a user-defined conversion declared as
operator int&()
returns a reference and is an l-value. However, a conversion declared as
operator int()
returns an object and is not an l-value.
