weak typing

programming Strict enforcement of type rules but with

well-defined exceptions or an explicit type-violation

mechanism.

Weak typing is "friendlier" to the programmer than strongtyping, but catches fewer errors at compile time.

C and C++ are weakly typed, as they automatically coerce

many types e.g. ints and floats. E.g.

int a = 5;

float b = a;

They also allow ignore typedefs for the purposes of type

comparison; for example the following is allowed, which would

probably be disallowed in a strongly typed language:

typedef int Date; /* Type to represent a date */

Date a = 12345;

int b = a; /* What does the coder intend? */

C++ is stricter than C in its handling of enumerated types:

enum animal CAT=0,DOG=2,ANT=3;

enum animal a = CAT; /* NB The enum is optional in C++ */

enum animal b = 1; /* This is a warning or error in C++ */

(2000-07-04)