In order to effectively develop C programs, it will be necessary to understand the rules that are used for the implicit conversion of floating point and integer values in C. These are mentioned below. Note them carefully
- An arithmetic operation between an integer and integer always yields an integer result
- An operation between a real and real always yields a real result.
- An operation between an integer and real always yields a real result. In this operation the integer is first promoted to a real and then the operation is performed. Hence the result is real
For example, consider the following assignment statements.
nt i ;
float b ;
i = 3.5 ;
b = 30 ;
Here in the first assignment statement though the expression’s value is a float (3.5) it cannot be stored in i since it is an int. In such a case the float is demoted to an int and then its value is stored. Hence what gets stored in i is 3. Exactly opposite happens in the next statement. Here, 30 is promoted to 30.000000 and then stored in b, since b being a float variable cannot hold anything except a float value