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

This was probably a practical decision on the part of the language designers. After all, an int is an Int32, a 32-bit signed integer. Whenever you do an integer operation on a type smaller than int, it's going to be converted to a 32 bit signed int by most any 32 bit CPU anyway. That, combined with the likelihood of overflowing small integers, probably sealed the deal. It saves you from the chore of continuously checking for over/under-flow, and when the final result of an expression on bytes would be in range, despite the fact that at some intermediate stage it would be out of range, you get a correct result.

Another thought: The over/under-flow on these types would have to be simulated, since it wouldn't occur naturally on the most likely target CPUs. Why bother?