Casting doubt

[saloni jhanwar]

class Test 
{
	static char c=11000;
	public static void main(String[] args) 
	{
		System.out.println(c);
	}
}

here i am assigning integer literal to char variable type that is narrowing conversion and as we know narrowing conversion always required explicit casting .I was expecting compile error "possible loss of precision;need a cast" but nothing so, why ?

[John Jai]

char size is to hold a 16-bit unicode value. If you read this Java tutorial's Primitives you can see it holds till 65535.

Hence till char c=65535; you won't get compiler error.

[saloni jhanwar]

John Jai wrote:char size is to hold a 16-bit unicode value. If you read this Java tutorial's Primitives you can see it holds till 65535.

Hence till char c=65535; you won't get compiler error.

If you know about char size that is unsigned 65535 then you may also know about integer size that is from -2,147,483,648 to +2,147,483,647.So matter is not that how much range it will allow ,matter is that it is a narrowing conversion and there must be explicit casting .

[John Jai]

Are you asking me or arguing char should allow at least integers in its range?

[saloni jhanwar]

John Jai wrote:Are you asking me or arguing char should allow at least integers in its range?

You lost question , i was not asking about range because i know about it.matter is not that how much range it will allow or not ,matter is that it is a narrowing conversion and there must be explicit casting that was i am asking here.

[Matthew Brown]

The int value you have is a compile-time constant, so the compiler knows whether the narrowing conversion is safe or not.

[John Jai]

saloni jhanwar wrote:

John Jai wrote:Are you asking me or arguing char should allow at least integers in its range?

You lost question , i was not asking about range because i know about it.

Yes I did. Sorry!

[saloni jhanwar]

Matthew Brown wrote:The int value you have is a compile-time constant, so the compiler knows whether the narrowing conversion is safe or not.

Thanks Matthew but i have still confusion i read that all primitive literals are compile time constant.It means compile should do decide itself for all type cases that it's narrowing conversion is safe or not then why we do some time casting for narrowing conversion

[Matthew Brown]

saloni jhanwar wrote:
Thanks Matthew but i have still confusion i read that all primitive literals are compile time constant.It means compile should do decide itself for all type cases that it's narrowing conversion is safe or not then why we do some time casting for narrowing conversion

An explicit cast is needed if the compiler can't tell that the cast is safe. Can you give an example that's confusing you?

[saloni jhanwar]

I need some more read to clear this doubt after that if i don't get it then i will continue this again.thanks again

[Henry Wong]

saloni jhanwar wrote:I need some more read to clear this doubt after that if i don't get it then i will continue this again.thanks again

The exact definition regarding how compile time constants are treated with assignment (implicit casting of) is in section 5.2 of the JLS...

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jls/se7/html/jls-5.html#jls-5.2

Specifically, this portion...

In addition, if the expression is a constant expression (§15.28) of type byte, short, char, or int:

A narrowing primitive conversion may be used if the type of the variable is byte, short, or char, and the value of the constant expression is representable in the type of the variable.

Henry

[saloni jhanwar]

Thank you Henry now i think my doubt would be over here