C++ Language/Type/Conversion/Casting

A "type cast" is a manually-programmed expression of type-conversion.

Traditional C programs wrote casting as.

C++ programs write casting as.

When casting from a pointer-to-base-class into a pointer-to-derived-class, using  instead of   adds a runtime check which returns   if the pointed-at object wasn't actually an instance of that derived class.

Additional information about casting (includes interactive examples)