C Programming - Variables and Data Storage

There are two situations in which to use a type cast. The first use is to change the type of an operand to an arithmetic operation so that the operation will be performed properly. The variable f1 is set to the result of dividing the integer i by the integer j. The result is 0, because integer division is used. The variable f2 is set to the result of dividing i by j as well. However, the (float) type cast causes i to be converted to a float. That in turn causes floating-point division to be used and gives the result 0.75.

#include <stdio.h>
main()
{
    int i = 3;
    int j = 4;
    float f1 = i / j;
    float f2 = (float) i / j;
    printf("3 / 4 == %g or %g depending on the type used.\n", f1, f2);
}

The second case is to cast pointer types to and from void * in order to interface with functions that expect or return void pointers. For example, the following line type casts the return value of the call to malloc() to be a pointer to a foo structure.

struct foo *p = (struct foo *) malloc(sizeof(struct foo));

A type cast should not be used to override a const or volatile declaration. Overriding these type modifiers can cause the program to fail to run correctly.

A type cast should not be used to turn a pointer to one type of structure or data type into another. In the rare events in which this action is beneficial, using a union to hold the values makes the programmer's intentions clearer.

A global variable that must be accessed from more than one file can and should be declared in a header file. In addition, such a variable must be defined in one source file. Variables should not be defined in header files, because the header file can be included in multiple source files, which would cause multiple definitions of the variable.

The ANSI C standard will allow multiple external definitions, provided that there is only one initialization. But because there's really no advantage to using this feature, it's probably best to avoid it and maintain a higher level of portability.

"Global" variables that do not have to be accessed from more than one file should be declared static and should not appear in a header file.

Declaring a variable means describing its type to the compiler but not allocating any space for it. Defining a variable means declaring it and also allocating space to hold the variable. You can also initialize a variable at the time it is defined. Here is a declaration of a variable and a structure, and two variable definitions, one with initialization:

extern int decl1;  /* this is a declaration */
struct decl2 
{
    int member;
}; /* this just declares the type--no variable mentioned */
int     def1 = 8;      /* this is a definition */
int     def2;          /* this is a definition */

To put it another way, a declaration says to the compiler, "Somewhere in my program will be a variable with this name, and this is what type it is." A definition says, "Right here is this variable with this name and this type."

A variable can be declared many times, but it must be defined exactly once. For this reason, definitions do not belong in header files, where they might get #included into more than one place in your program.