Which variables should I typecast when doing math operations in C/C++?

Question

For example, when I\'m dividing two ints and want a float returned, I superstitiously write something like this:

int a = 2, b = 3;
float c = (float)a / (floa         


        

Answer 1

Do you need to cast one or two sides? The answer isn't dictated by the compiler. It has to know the exact, precse rules. Instead, the answer should be dictated by the person who will read the code later. For that reason alone, cast both sides to the same type. Implicit truncation might be visible enough, so that cast could be redundant.

e.g. this cast float->int is obvious.

int a = float(foo()) * float(c);