How to cast the size_t to double or int C++

If your code is prepared to deal with overflow errors, you can throw an exception if data is too large.

size_t data = 99999999;
if ( data > INT_MAX )
{
   throw std::overflow_error("data is larger than INT_MAX");
}
int convertData = static_cast<int>(data);

Static cast:

static_cast<int>(data);

A cast, as Blaz Bratanic suggested:

size_t data = 99999999;
int convertdata = static_cast<int>(data);

is likely to silence the warning (though in principle a compiler can warn about anything it likes, even if there's a cast).

But it doesn't solve the problem that the warning was telling you about, namely that a conversion from size_t to int really could overflow.

If at all possible, design your program so you don't need to convert a size_t value to int. Just store it in a size_t variable (as you've already done) and use that.

Converting to double will not cause an overflow, but it could result in a loss of precision for a very large size_t value. Again, it doesn't make a lot of sense to convert a size_t to a double; you're still better off keeping the value in a size_t variable.

(R Sahu's answer has some suggestions if you can't avoid the cast, such as throwing an exception on overflow.)


You can use Boost numeric_cast.

This throws an exception if the source value is out of range of the destination type, but it doesn't detect loss of precision when converting to double.

Whatever function you use, though, you should decide what you want to happen in the case where the value in the size_t is greater than INT_MAX. If you want to detect it use numeric_cast or write your own code to check. If you somehow know that it cannot possibly happen then you could use static_cast to suppress the warning without the cost of a runtime check, but in most cases the cost doesn't matter anyway.