What is automatic type promotion in c

Question

What will be the output of this code?

 void main(){
       int i=320;
       char *ptr=(char *)&i;
       printf("%d",*ptr); 
    }

Answer 1

C performs type conversions automatically when values of differing types participate in expressions. For most programming, you don't have to memorize these rules exactly, but it's good idea to have a general understanding of how they work, so that you won't be surprised by any of the default conversions, and so that you'll know to use explicit conversions in those few cases where C would not perform a needed conversion automatically.

The rules, then (which you can also find on page 44 of K&R2) are approximately as follows:

1) In most circumstances, values of type char and short int are converted to int right off the bat.
2) If an operation involves two operands, and one of them is of type long double, the other one is converted to long double.
3) If an operation involves two operands, and one of them is of type double, the other one is converted to double.
4) If an operation involves two operands, and one of them is of type float, the other one is converted to float.
5) If an operation involves two operands, and one of them is of type long int, the other one is converted to long int.
6) If an operation involves both signed and unsigned integers, the situation is a bit more complicated. If the unsigned operand is smaller (perhaps we're operating on unsigned int and long int), such that the larger, signed type could represent all values of the smaller, unsigned type, then the unsigned value is converted to the larger, signed type, and the result has the larger, signed type. Otherwise (that is, if the signed type can not represent all values of the unsigned type), both values are converted to a common unsigned type, and the result has that unsigned type.
7) Finally, when a value is assigned to a variable using the assignment operator, it is automatically converted to the type of the variable if (a) both the value and the variable have arithmetic type (that is, integer or floating point), or (b) both the value and the variable are pointers, and one or the other of them is of type void *.

Answer 2

In c if two operands are of different data type in a binary operation then before performing any operation compiler will automatically convert the operand of lower data type to higher data type. This phenomenon is known as automatic type conversion.

For example:-

int a = 5, c; 
float b = 20.1; 
c = a + b; 

Here a int variable, while b is float variable. So before performing addition operation value of the variable a (Lower data type) will automatically convert into float constant (higher data type) then it will perform addition operation. I hope it should answer your doubt.