Casting Operators

There are several casting operators specific to the C++ language. These operators are intended to remove some of the ambiguity and danger inherent in old style C language casts. These operators are:

• dynamic_cast   Used for conversion of polymorphic types.
  
  
• static_cast   Used for conversion of nonpolymorphic types.
  
  
• const_cast   Used to remove the const, volatile, and __unaligned attributes.
  
  
• reinterpret_cast   Used for simple reinterpretation of bits.

Use const_cast and reinterpret_cast as a last resort, since these operators present the same dangers as old style casts. However, they are still necessary in order to completely replace old style casts.