Parentheses around data type?

Question

I am a beginning programmer and came across this in my textbook:

public boolean equals(DataElement otherElement)
{
    IntElement temp = (IntElement) otherEl         


        

Answer 1

(IntElement) casts otherElement which is of type DataElement to type IntElement

Check out this link about Java Types and Type Conversion (Casting) for a more thorough description.