C++-style Casting
=================

In C, you can cast in one of two ways:

(type)var
type(var)

The problem with C-style casting is that it allows a programmer to get away
with too much, and is also not designed to handle C++ classes.

C++ has 4 types of casting in addition to allowing C-style casting.  They are:

static_cast
const_cast
dynamic_cast
reinterpret_cast

The syntax is usually *_cast<type>(var).

static_cast
-----------

From my experience, this cast is closest to C-style casting for non-pointer
types as well as between some (but not all) pointer types.  This type of cast,
like C-style casting, is performed at compile-time.  static_cast can also do
a downcast of a derived class to a base class, but only if the base class is
not a virtual base class.  Sometimes the result of this cast can become
undefined.  static_cast is a bit more strict that C-style casting, though.  It
disallows certain class conversions that would've been allowed with a C-style
cast.  static_cast also doesn't allow you to cast to an incomplete type.  In
these cases, I would try either dynamic_cast or reinterpret_cast.

const_cast
----------

This cast is mainly to add or remove const-ness or volatile-ness from a
variable.  This is safer than using a C-style cast to change the const-ness
of a variable.  In most cases if you try to use one of the other casts and it
complains about const-ness, you will want to either use this cast instead or
wrap the other cast around this cast.  An example:

const int *a;
static_cast<void *>(a); <-- This will fail.

To remedy the above, you would might try this:

const int *a;
const_cast<void *>(a); <-- But this will still fail.

The real solution is this:

const int *a;
static_cast<void *>(const_cast<int *>(a));

It is not recommended to use const_cast on the this variable within a member
function of a class that is declared const.  Instead you should use the mutable
keyword on the variable in the class's definition.

dynamic_cast
------------

This cast can only be used on pointers or references to classes.  It can cast a
derived class to a base class, a derived class to another derived class
(provided that both are children of the same base class), or a base class to a
derived class.  You can also use this to cast a class to void *.  This cast is
done at run-time as opposed to the other casts, and relies on C++'s RTTI to be
enabled.  It is meant to be used on polymorphic classes, so use static_cast on
non-polymorphic classes.

derived-to-base conversions are actually done statically, so you use either
dynamic_cast or static_cast on them, regardless of if the classes are
polymorphic or not.

derived-to-derived or base-to-derived conversions, however, rely on run-time
type information, and this cast is used on those classes that are polymorphic.
This is safer than C-style casting in that an invalid pointer conversion will
return a NULL pointer, and an invalid reference conversion will throw a
Bad_cast exception.

Note that in Anope we prefer if Anope::debug_cast is used.
This uses dynamic_cast (and checks for a NULL pointer return) on debug builds
and static_cast on release builds, to speed up the program because of dynamic_cast's
reliance on RTTI.

reinterpret_cast
----------------

This cast I would use only as a last resort if static_cast isn't allowed on a
conversion.  It allows for conversions between two unrelated types, such as
going from char * to int *.  It can also be used to convert a pointer to an
integral type and vica versa.  The sites I've read mention how the result is
non-portable, which I assume means the resulting object code is non-portable,
so since the code is compiled on many systems anyways, I don't see this as
being a huge issue.  It is recommended to only use this if necessary, though.

Links
=====

The following links are web sites I've used to get this information, and might
describe some of the above a bit better than I have. :P

http://www.acm.org/crossroads/xrds3-1/ovp3-1.html
http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/typecasting.html
http://www.codeguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=312456
http://www.cs.umd.edu/class/sum2003/cmsc311/Notes/BitOp/cast.html
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/5f6c9f8h(VS.80).aspx
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/C%2B%2B_Programming/Type_Casting
http://www.informit.com/guides/content.aspx?g=cplusplus&seqNum=134

-- CyberBotX, Nov 23, 2008
