How to Assume (Bool)True == (Int)1 for Any C++ Compiler

Can I assume (bool)true == (int)1 for any C++ compiler?

According to the standard, you should be safe with that assumption. The C++ bool type has two values - true and false with corresponding values 1 and 0.

The thing to watch about for is mixing bool expressions and variables with BOOL expression and variables. The latter is defined as FALSE = 0 and TRUE != FALSE, which quite often in practice means that any value different from 0 is considered TRUE.

A lot of modern compilers will actually issue a warning for any code that implicitly tries to cast from BOOL to bool if the BOOL value is different than 0 or 1.

Is C/C++ bool type always guaranteed to be 0 or 1 when typecast'ed to int?

Yes:

In C++ (§4.5/4):

An rvalue of type bool can be
converted to an rvalue of type int,
with false becoming zero and true
becoming one.

In C, when a value is converted to _Bool, it becomes 0 or 1 (§6.3.1.2/1):

When any scalar value is converted to
_Bool, the result is 0 if the value compares equal to 0; otherwise, the
result is 1.

When converting to int, it's pretty straight-forward. int can hold 0 and 1, so there's no change in value (§6.3.1.3).

Casting int to bool in C/C++

0 values of basic types ⁽¹⁾⁽²⁾map to false.

Other values map to true.

This convention was established in original C, via its flow control statements; C didn't have a boolean type at the time.

It's a common error to assume that as function return values, false indicates failure. But in particular from main it's false that indicates success. I've seen this done wrong many times, including in the Windows starter code for the D language (when you have folks like Walter Bright and Andrei Alexandrescu getting it wrong, then it's just dang easy to get wrong), hence this heads-up beware beware.

There's no need to cast to bool for built-in types because that conversion is implicit. However, Visual C++ (Microsoft's C++ compiler) has a tendency to issue a performance warning (!) for this, a pure silly-warning. A cast doesn't suffice to shut it up, but a conversion via double negation, i.e. return !!x, works nicely. One can read !! as a “convert to bool” operator, much as --> can be read as “goes to”. For those who are deeply into readability of operator notation. ;-)

^{¹⁾ C++14 §4.12/1 “A zero value, null pointer value, or null member pointer value is converted to false; any other value is converted to true. For direct-initialization (8.5), a prvalue of type std::nullptr_t can be converted to a prvalue of type bool; the resulting value is false.”

²⁾ C99 and C11 §6.3.1.2/1 “When any scalar value is converted to _Bool, the result is 0 if the value compares equal to 0; otherwise, the result is 1.”}

Using true and false in C

Just include <stdbool.h> if your system provides it. That defines a number of macros, including bool, false, and true (defined to _Bool, 0, and 1 respectively). See section 7.16 of C99 for more details.

Using boolean values in C

From best to worse:

Option 1 (C99 and newer)

#include <stdbool.h>

Option 2

typedef enum { false, true } bool;

Option 3

typedef int bool;
enum { false, true };

Option 4

typedef int bool;
#define true 1
#define false 0

Explanation

Option 1 will work only if you use C99 (or newer) and it's the "standard way" to do it. Choose this if possible.
Options 2, 3 and 4 will have in practice the same identical behavior. #2 and #3 don't use #defines though, which in my opinion is better.

If you are undecided, go with #1!