• Type casting is the process of converting one data type to another data type, like a string to an integer or float and vice versa.
  • Example:
num_string1 = "30"
num_string2 = "20"
num_strings = num_string1 + num_string2

print(num_strings)
print(type(num_strings))

  
nums_typecast = int(num_string1) + int(num_string2)
print(nums_typecast)
print(type(nums_typecast))

  
try_typecast = int(num_string1 + num_string2)
print(try_typecast)
print(type(try_typecast))

typecasting numbers

  • In the code above, the data type of num_string1 and num_string2 are strings so when they are added using + operator, the result will just be a string concatenation and the data type is still a string. To convert the string to an integer I can use int(). The conversion has to happen before the operation like int(num_string1) + int(num_string2). In the example of try_typecast, the operation of num_string1 + num_string2 has already happened before the conversion to integers, so it will convert the result of the string concatenation.

  • I can also convert integers to strings like so:

num_int1 = 30
num_int2 = 20

num_ints = (str(num_int1 + num_int2))

print(num_ints)
print(type(num_ints))

Integers to Strings

  • I can only convert strings that have integers representation
try_str1 = int("Kei")
try_str2 = 30

print(try_str1 + try_str2)

Typecasting errors