C++ cast explanation

• const_cast(expression)
• dynamic_cast(expression)
• reinterpret_cast(expression)
• static_cast(expression)

Each serves a distinct purpose:

• const_cast is typically used to cast away the constness of objects. It is the only C++-style cast that can do this.
• dynamic_cast is primarily used to perform “safe downcasting,” i.e., to determine whether an object is of a particular type in an inheritance hierarchy. It is the only cast that cannot be performed using the old-style syntax. It is also the only cast that may have a significant runtime cost. (I'll provide details on this a bit later.)
• reinterpret_cast is intended for low-level casts that yield implementationdependent (i.e., unportable) results, e.g., casting a pointer to an int. Such casts should be rare outside low-level code. I use it only once in this book, and that's only when discussing how you might write a debugging allocator for raw memory (see Item 50).
• static_cast can be used to force implicit conversions (e.g., non-const object to const object (as in Item 3), int to double, etc.). It can also be used to perform the reverse of many such conversions (e.g., void* pointers to typed pointers, pointer-to-base to pointer-to-derived), though it cannot cast from const to non-const objects. (Only const_cast can do that.)