Type casting

From DocForge

Type casting, or typecasting, is the explicit conversion of a value from one data type to another. Typically, strongly typed languages require explicit typecasting while loosely typed languages will implicitly convert types as needed.

Often a value can easily be typecast to a more narrow type (i.e. lower in the type hierarchy). Typecasting to a more general type can cause the loss of precision. For example, converting the integer 1 to a float will produce 1.0. But typecasting a float of 1.2 to an integer will produce 1.