Conversion between character and int in Java

Question

You cannot convert from int to char, so this would be illegal int i = 88; char c = i;,

However this is allowed char c = 88;.

Isn\'t

Answer 1

Actually, converting from int to char is legal, it just requires an explicit cast because it can potentially lose data:

int i = 88; 
char c = (char) i;

However, with the literal, the compiler knows whether it will fit into a char without losing data and only complains when you use a literal that is too big to fit into a char:

char c = 70000; // compiler error