Question

Here’s an example I have.

public int getDelta()
    {
      long time = getTime();
      int delta = (int) (time - lastFrame);
      lastFrame = time;

    return delta;
}

In the fourth line, there’s an “(int)”. What does it mean?

This code is just an example I found with it; I’m not looking for a specific answer to the code I posted. What the (int) even does, generally. I’ve seen it done with (byte) too.

Answer 1

It means you’re casting a long into an int. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_conversion

You can’t just say

int delta = (time - lastFrame);

Because time and lastFrame are longs (I’m assuming lastFrame is, at least). Therefore you must convert the type (cast) the result of that subtraction into an integer value.