widening and precision

rg703 · October 10th, 2013, 09:21 AM

Provide an example of a widening conversion that does not result in loss of magnitude but would result in loss of precision. Thanks!

Stormbringer · December 17th, 2013, 05:51 AM

I am also intrested in such an example.

The book says (p. 157): "Widening conversions always succeed and a cast is optional. Magnitude is never lost but precision may be."

The type conversion from decimal to double is magnitude safe but not precision safe. So this could be a candidate example, but the problem is that the cast is NOT optional. So according to the citation above it is not widening.

Would appreciate some help with this, thanks.

Rod Stephens · December 17th, 2013, 11:02 AM

Yes it's a bit inconsistent, but it's taken pretty much directly from the Microsoft documentation and I wanted to be sure everyone picked up on it in case it appeared on the exam.

The decimal --> double conversion may not be a great example because you're right a cast is required.

Personally, if I had been on the Microsoft team, I would have argued that loss of precision makes a narrowing conversion. Saying it's not is like saying, "Casting an Employee into a Person is a widening conversion. Sure you lose the EmployeeId but you keep the name."

From Type Conversion in the .NET Framework:

Quote:

Widening conversions cannot result in data loss (although they may result in a loss of precision). Because data cannot be lost, compilers can handle the conversion implicitly or transparently, without requiring the use of an explicit conversion method or a casting operator.

And on Type Conversion Tables there's a table that lists decimal --> double and decimal --> double as widening conversions.

So the documentation is a bit inconsistent. Microsoft regards those conversions as widening but the compiler requires a cast.

Here's an example that doesn't require a cast:

Code:

long longValue = 1234567890;
float floatValue = longValue;

Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0,15:N0}", longValue));
Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0,15:N0}", floatValue));

The result is:

Code:

  1,234,567,890
  1,234,568,000

I think as long as you understand the issues, you'll be okay on the exam. To summarize, the issues are:

Widening conversions may result in a loss of precision but not magnitude.
In general (except for this case converting from decimal), widening conversions don't require casting.

I hope that helps.