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ccs50implicit-conversionarithmetic-expressions

Why does dividing a int with a float result in a float?

Question why does this happen? Is this just a C language thing?

I'm following the cs50 course.

 #include <stdio.h>
 
 int main(void)
 {
     int testInt = 5;
     printf("%f", testInt / 4.0);      
 }

Output is 1.250000 -- float value

Solution

  • Is this just a C language thing?

    The answer is "because that's how the C language defines the operation."

    It is common in many languages to promote an integer to a floating point before doing an operation with another floating point value.

    If it didn't work this way, there would be many accidental loss-of-precision (or loss-of-information) bugs.