What is the performance implication of converting to bool in C++?

Question

[This question is related to but not the same as this one.]

My compiler warns about implicitly converting or casting certain types to bool whereas explicit

Answer 1

In C++ a bool ISA int with only two values 0 = false, 1 = true. The compiler only has to check one bit. To be perfectly clear, true != 0, so any int can override bool, it just cost processing cycles to do so.

By using a long as in the code sample, you are forcing a lot more bit checks, which will cause a performance hit.

No this is not premature optimization, it is quite crazy to use code that takes more processing time across the board. This is simply good coding practice.