Static cast

'static_cast' allows to perform any casting that can be implicitly performed as well as also the inverse cast (even if this is not allowed implicitly).

Applied to pointers to classes, that is to say that it allows to cast a pointer of a derived class to its base class (this is a valid conversion that can be implicitly performed) and can also perform the inverse: cast a base class to its derivated class.

In this last case the base class that is being casted is not checked to determine wether this is a complete class of the destination type or not.

Code:

class Base {};
class Derived : public Base {};

Base *a = new Base;
Derived *b = static_cast(a);

'static_cast', aside from manipulating pointers to classes, can also be used to perform conversions explicitly defined in classes, as well as to perform standard conversions between fundamental types: