Java Foundations

3-4
Converting Between Data Types

Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Objectives
• This lesson covers the following objectives:
−Take advantage of automatic promotion
• And when to be cautious with promotions
−Cast variables to other data types
• And when to be cautious with casting
−Parse Strings as numeric values

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Congratulations!
• Congratulations on making it this far in the course!
• A promotion is coming your way!

• Your promotion:
32 64
bit bit

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Double Deception
• What we’ve seen before:
double x = 9/2; //Should be 4.5
System.out.println(x); //prints 4.0

−Java solves the expression, truncates the .5, and then turns
the answer into a double
• Simplifying the scenario, we see:
double x = 4;
System.out.println(x); //prints 4.0

−We’re assigning an integer value to a double variable

−Java promotes the integer value to a double
32 bits 64 bits

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Promotion
• Automatic promotions:
−If you assign a smaller type to a larger type:

byte short int long

−If you assign an integral value to a floating point type:

4 4,0

• Examples of automatic promotions:

−long intToLong = 6;
−double intToDouble = 4;

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Why Does Promotion Work?
long
int
short
byte

• A byte could be -128 to 127

• All possible byte values can be contained in a short
• All possible short values can be contained in an int
• All possible int values can be contained in a long
• All possible int values can be contained in a double
without losing precision

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Caution with Promotion, Example 1
• Equation: 55555 * 66666 = 3703629630
• Example of potential issue:
int num1 = 55555;
int num2 = 66666;
long num3;
num3 = num1 * num2;

• Example of potential solution:

int num1 = 55555;
long num2 = 66666; Changed from int to long
long num3;
num3 = num1 * num2;

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Caution with Promotion, Example 2
• Equation: 7 / 2 = 3.5
• Example of potential issue:
int num1 = 7;
int num2 = 2;
double num3;
num3 = num1 / num2; //num3 is 3.0

• Example of potential solution:

int num1 = 7;
double num2 = 2; Changed from int to double
double num3;
num3 = num1 / num2; //num3 is 3.5

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Type Casting
• When to cast:
−If you assign a larger type to a smaller type:

byte short int long

−If you assign a floating point type to an integral type:

3 3,0

• Examples of casting:
−int longToInt = (int)20L;
−short doubleToShort = (short)3.0;

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Caution with Type Casting
• Be cautious of lost precision
• Example of potential issue:
int myInt;
double myPercent = 51.9;
myInt = (int)myPrecent; // Number is "chopped"
// myInt is 51

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Caution with Type Casting
• Example of potential issue:
int myInt;
long myLong = 123987654321L;
myInt = (int)myLong; // Number is "chopped"
// myInt is -566397263

• Safer example of casting:

int myInt;
long myLong = 99L;
myInt = (int)myLong; // No data loss, only zeroes.
// myInt is 99

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Chopping an Integral
• The examples we’ve seen raise a few questions:
−What does it mean to “chop” an integral?
−Why are we getting negative values?
• It’s time to launch another investigation with …
−Casting
−Math

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Exercise 1
• Import and edit the Casting01 project
• Declare and initialize a byte with a value of 128:
−Observe NetBeans’ complaint
−Comment out this problematic line
• Declare and initialize a short with a value of 128:
−Create a print statement that casts this short to a byte
• Declare and initialize a byte with a value of 127
−Add 1 to this variable and print it
−Add 1 to this variable again and print it again

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Investigation Results
• A byte may have a value between -128 and 127
−128 is the first positive value that’s containable within a
short but not a byte
−Trying to cast a variable with a value of 128 to a byte is like
assigning a byte a value of 127 and incrementing +1
• Trying to increment a variable beyond its maximum
value results in its minimum value
−The value space of a variable wraps around
−A variable is said to overflow when this happens
• 127 in binary is 01111111; 128 in binary is 10000000.
−Java uses the first bit in a number to indicates sign (+/-)

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Compiler Assumptions
for Integral and Floating Point Data Types
• Most operations result in an int or a long
−byte, short, and char values are automatically promoted
to int prior to an operation
−If an expression contains a long, the entire expression is
promoted to long
• If an expression contains a floating point, the entire
expression is promoted to a floating point
• All literal floating point values are viewed as double

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Options for Fixing Issues
• Example of a potential issue:
int num1 = 53; // 32 bits of memory to hold the value
int num2 = 47; // 32 bits of memory to hold the value
byte num3; // 8 bits of memory reserved
num3 = (num1 + num2); // causes compiler error

• A byte should be able to hold a value of 100

• But Java refuses to make the assignment and issues a
“possible loss of precision” error
• Java assumes that adding int variables will result in a
value that would overflow the space allocated for a
byte
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Options for Fixing Issues
• Solution using larger data type:
int num1 = 53;
int num2 = 47;
int num3; Changed from byte to int
num3 = (num1 + num2);

• Solution using casting:

int num1 = 53; // 32 bits of memory to hold the value
int num2 = 47; // 32 bits of memory to hold the value
byte num3; // 8 bits of memory reserved
num3 = (byte)(num1 + num2); // no data loss

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Automatic Promotion
• Example of a potential problem:
short a, b, c;
a = 1 ;
a and b are automatically promoted to integers
b = 2 ;
c = a + b ; //compiler error

• Example of potential solutions:

• Declare c as an int type in the original declaration:
−int c;
• Type cast the (a+b) result in the assignment line:
−c = (short)(a+b);

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Using a Long
public class Person { Using the L to indicate a long
will result in the compiler
recognizing the total result as a
public static void main(String[] args){ long
int ageYears = 32;
int ageDays = ageYears * 365;
long ageSeconds = ageYears * 365 * 24L * 60 * 60;

System.out.println("You are " + ageDays + " days old.");

System.out.println("You are " + ageSeconds + " seconds old.");

}//end of main method

}//end of class

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Using Floating Points
• Example of potential problem:
int num1 = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4.0; //compiler error
int num2 = (1 + 2 + 3 + 4) * 1.0; //compiler error
Expressions are automatically
• Example of potential solutions: promoted to floating points
−Declare num1 and num2 as double types:
double num1 = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4.0; //10.0
double num2 = (1 + 2 + 3 + 4) * 1.0; //10.0

−Type cast num1 and num2 as int types in the assignment line:
int num1 = (int)(1 + 2 + 3 + 4.0); //10
int num2 = (int)((1 + 2 + 3 + 4) * 1.0); //10

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Floating Point Data Types and Assignment
• Example of potential problem:
float float1 = 27.9; //compiler error

• Example of potential solutions:

−The F notifies the compiler that 27.9 is a float value:
float float1 = 27.9F;

−27.9 is cast to a float type:

float float1 = (float) 27.9;

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Exercise 2
• Import and edit the Casting02 project
• There are several errors in this program
• You should be able to fix these errors using …
−Your knowledge of data types
−Your knowledge of promotion
−Your knowledge of casting

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The Underscore
• You may have noticed the underscores (_):
−As of Java SE7, you can include underscores when you assign
numeric values
−Underscores help large numbers become more readable
−Underscores don’t affect the value of a variable
• The following two statements are equivalent:
int x = 123_456_789;

int x = 123456789;

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Converting Strings to Numeric Data
• When you invite a user to type in a dialog box …
−They can type whatever text they want
−This text is best represented by a String
• But sometimes you’ll need to do math with user inputs
−If you design a program that accepts text input, you may have
to convert the String to numeric data types

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Parsing Strings
• Converting text to numeric data is a form of parsing
• How to convert a String to an int:
int intVar1 = Integer.parseInt("100");

• How to convert a String to a double:

double doubleVar2 = Double.parseDouble("2.72");

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Exercise 3, Part 1
• Import and edit the Parsing01 project
• Declare and initialize 3 Strings with the following data:
String Variable Description Example Values
shirtPrice Text to be converted to "15"
an int:
taxRate Text to be converted to a "0.05"
double:
gibberish Gibberish "887ds7nds87dsfs"

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Exercise 3, Part 2
• Parse and multiply shirtPrice*taxRate to find the tax
−Print this value
• Try to parse taxRate as an int
−Observe the error message
• Try to parse gibberish as an int
−Observe the error message

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Trouble with User Input
• NumberFormatException
−It occurs because a value cannot be parsed
−This is a risk if users can input anything they want
int intVar1 = Integer.parseInt("Puppies!");

• Software shouldn’t crash because of user input

−But ignore this for now
−First, let’s figure out how to get user input in the next lesson
−We’ll learn about error handling and exceptions in Section 8

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Summary
• In this lesson, you should have learned how to:
−Take advantage of automatic promotion
• And when to be cautious with promotions
−Cast variables to other data types
• And when to be cautious with casting
−Parse Strings as numeric values

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 Quiz
Click the Quiz button to edit this object

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