Scala Char automatically converts to Integer

Question

Char is automatically converted to Integer. Why did this conversion from char to Int happen? I expected res2 to be of dataType anyVal.

val achar = 'a'
if (b > 12) 12 else achar
res2: Int = 97

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/66066142/scala-char-automatically-converts-to-integer

Answer 1

This is because you return a Int Value in the true-branch. Scala behaves with those primitive datatypes just like java (the classes are transformed into primitives through the compiler). So the return type of your if could be either a char or a int (12 is a integer, because number literals are always integers). Since a char could not hold every int, the compiler "casts" your char to a int. If you would cast 12 to a char like this:

val achar = 'a'
if (b > 12) 12.asInstanceOf[Char] else achar

It would return a char.