Type conversion

• We have been using several arithmetic operators which take numbers as arguments and return numbers. They include +, -, *, /, and %, which takes two integers and returns the remainder of the first when divided by the second.
• When a binary arithmetic operator is applied to two numbers of the same type (for example, ints) it returns a number of that type. When the numbers are of different types, the operator returns a number of the type with greater precision. For example, adding an int and a double yields a double (the int is converted to a double before the addition is performed).
• Sometimes we may need to be explicit in our code about a type conversion. For example, we may want a particular type to be returned by a method, a parameter may need to be a particular type, or we may want to call a method that is associated with a particular type.
• We can force a type conversion by the use of a casting operator:
  (type) value
• Here's an example that uses the Math method random() that returns a double between 0.0 and 1.0. This method returns a random integer between 0 and maximum - 1.
  public static int getRandomInt(int maximum) {
     return (int)(Math.random() * maximum);
  }

© 2004. Indiana University and Michael Gasser. www.indiana.edu/~gasser/Q530/Notes/conversion.html 15 Sep 2004