Explicit casting with inferred variables

Imagine that a co-programmer assigned 29 to an inferred local variable (let's say age), assuming that the compiler would infer the type of the variable age as byte:

var age = 29;           // inferred type of age is int 

However, the compiler would infer the type of the variable age as int, since the default type of an integer literal value is int. To fix the preceding assumption, you can either use the explicit data type or override the compiler's default inference mechanism by using explicit casting, as follows:

byte age = 29;                // Option 1 - no type inference 
var age = (byte)29;           // Option 2 - explicit casting 

Similarly, you can use explicit casting with other primitive data types, like char and float:

var letter = (char)97;        // inferred type of letter is char 
var debit = (float)17.9;      // inferred type of debit is float  

Without the explicit casting in the preceding examples, variables that are assigned integer literal values would be inferred as int, and decimal as double.

The following example shows explicit casting with reference variables:

class Automobile {} 
class Car extends Automobile { 
    void check() {} 
} 
class Test{ 
    public static void main(String[] args) { 
        var obj = (Automobile)new Car();                             
        obj.check();     // Won't compile; type of obj is Automobile 
    } 
}