Converting bool to byte

Question

bool myBool = true;
byte myByte;

• This conversion runs myByte = Convert.ToByte(myBool);
• This conversion does not run myByte = (byte)myBool;

For a newbie( me ): why are the above different?

Answer 1

Convert.ToByte is a method - it can do whatever it wants to, probably along the lines of:

return input ? (byte) 1 : (byte) 0;

A cast is a language-level operation. It requires that either the language knows about the conversion itself, or that one of the types involved has a user-defined conversion with the right input and output types. Neither of these is the case when converting from bool to byte .

Basically, the language doesn't define what that cast should mean, so the compiler prohibits it.