C++ Language/Type/Conversion/Casting

A "type cast" is a manually-programmed expression of type-conversion. Traditional C programs wrote casting as (float)iVar. C++ programs write casting as static_cast<float>(iVar). When casting from a pointer-to-base-class into a pointer-to-derived-class, using dynamic_cast<> instead of static_cast<> adds a runtime check which returns NULL if the pointed-at object wasn't actually an instance of that derived class. Additional information about casting (includes interactive examples)