23.1 The implicit and explicit keywords

23.1 The implicit and explicit keywords

In the above example, you can only perform a cast from Inch to Cm explicitly . That is, if you were to do this:

 Cm cm1 = inch; // implicit cast 

instead of this:

 Cm cm1 = (Cm)inch; // explicit cast 

You would get a compile-time error which reads: ' Cannot implicitly convert type Inch to Cm '.

It is possible to allow implicit casting by replacing the explicit keyword in the conversion method declaration by implicit . Instead of:

 13:   public static  explicit  operator Cm (Inch toConvert){ 

replacing the explicit keyword by implicit will enable implicit casting of an Inch object to a Cm type:

 13:   public static  implicit  operator Cm (Inch toConvert){