byte + byte = int… why?

Question

Looking at this C# code:

byte x = 1;
byte y = 2;
byte z = x + y; // ERROR: Cannot implicitly convert type \'int\' to \'byte\'

The result of

Answer 1

My suspicion is that C# is actually calling the operator+ defined on int (which returns an int unless you are in a checked block), and implicitly casting both of your bytes/shorts to ints. That's why the behavior appears inconsistent.