Why is assigning 'int constant -> byte variable' valid, but 'long constant -> int variable' is not?

Question

I have this code snippet:

int i = 5l; // not valid (compile error)
byte b = 5; // valid

What do you think about it?

Why?

Answer 1

Just assuming here because there is unlikely to be a definitive answer.

For

int i = 5l;

the compiler assumes there is a good reason you wrote 5l and not 5 and so it is an error.

For

byte b = 5;

there is no byte literal way of writing 5 and so it would be needlessly pedantic to insist you write (byte) 5 every time and in fact it would be error prone.

byte b = 222;        // is an error
byte b = (byte) 222; // is NOT an error