question about casting pointers/other types also??

Hi,

I have been trying to figure out casting, and have a quick question I hope someone can help me with:

What exactly is the purpose of casting, like for int, char...etc...:
example:
int x = 5;
(char) x;

I am confused about this? what does it mean, and why is it needed??


Also, I keep seeing code where it mentions casting a pointer:
example:
(void *) something;

Could someone please explain what casting a pointer means and why it is needed??

Thanks a lot for any explanation! It is appreciated!

First, typecasting isn't used that often.

It is used when a number passed to a function is different from what the function requires. If your function expects an int, and you only have a char, you need to cast the char to an int.

This shouldn't happen if you wrote the program and the function yourself, but it could happen if you are using a library function.

A void pointer is a pointer that can point to any type. There's some info from a tutorial at cplusplus.com (Look for "void pointers" near the bottom of the page.)

Thank you, it makes much more sense now , thanks a lot!

>> First, typecasting isn't used that often.

Perhaps with simple data types, but typecasting is almost always used in almost every C++ program where classes or templates are used.

It is important to understand how C++ typecasting works.